Psychological Richness [513]

Greetings from the shed...

All this stuff — I carry it in my mind. Which is also a mess.

I’m Christian Payne, autotelic, photographer and writer. In this weekly dispatch I seek out novelty, explore the relations between things, how we share, what we share and consume, plus where we might be going. Thanks for joining in.

---

#TheAction

It’s been one of those weeks with erratic weather and only a vague sense of time. Phone calls, negotiations, research and fixing things have featured throughout. It’s so nice to finally sit down in the shed to write. Especially as the sun is back with a little welcome warmth.

I’ve been asked by quite a few of you about how the plans to move house/country are going. As with everything material, social, emotional, spiritual and psychological, it’s quite personal so will drop my news down at the bottom of this post. Locked so not fully public. Thanks for asking and in a few instances offering help. It’s much appreciated. :-)

---

#ThePictures

Last night I went to see the film ‘A Complete Unknown.

Dylan's music has played a huge part throughout my life and I was really hoping to find out a little more about the genius behind it.

But the film was more about the key figures and events that got Dylan seen and heard. A few of the early scenes had me quite emotional. Timothée Chalamet most certainly rocked the part, despite Dylan himself remaining a complete unknown to the viewer.

Not seeing Dylan play live has always been a regret of mine, but after watching the film I feel a little better about it. In this slither of a very long and complex life, it felt like he put so much of himself into his songs, all that was left was a moody shy and reclusive husk.

But he's more than that, and the film had me appreciate the bigger picture and the people like Suze Rotolo, (Sylvie in the movie, played by Elle Fanning). She was his muse and inspiration for some of my favourite songs.

I stayed all the way to the end of the credits and the catharsis had me wishing I'd been a part of the folk scene in Greenwich Village 1963.

The man himself might be difficult to approach or understand, but his music isn't, and will be there forever.

I'd had the cinema to myself and as I left into a cold night I found myself singing.

---

Gene Hackman. One of the greatest.

I had no idea he was still alive till I just heard he’d died.

He died along with his wife and one of their dogs. The causes of death are not yet known.

---

#TheWords

Last week in Gladstone’s library, I stumbled upon a book so weird and interesting that I desperately wanted to spend more time with it. But alas there were 249,999 other books to get round, so I had to put it back.

I took a photo with the intention of sharing it in the last dispatch but ran out of space.

Then somehow today, the book revisited me.

Serendipity needs to be unexpected, positive and feel like happenstance, coincidence or luck. I wasn’t looking for this fortuitous chance encounter in the shape of a link. It just landed in my inbox. The mushroom moves in mysterious ways.

---

Who’d have thought I’d have something in common with the great Robert Frost.

I’m clutching at straws here obviously, but it appears that we’ve both written a poem called ‘Nothing New’.

In Robert’s case it’s a recently discovered piece and of course a thing of beauty, wonderfully written.

Amberst 1918

One moment when the dust to-day

Against my face was turned to spray,

I dreamed the winter dream again

I dreamed when I was young at play,

Yet strangely not more sad than then —

Nothing new—

Though I am further upon my way

The same dream again. —Robert Frost (1874-1963)

My poem on the other hand (with added location and date) is…

Brandon 1986

It’s why I think of what I do

That makes me think it’s nothing new

Of what I say, or see of feel

That makes me think it’s nothing real

After this it’s just the same

Review my thoughts and think again

Cause thoughts are all I seem to view

I wonder — No

This time i’ll do —Christian Payne

I wrote this through tears, lying on the top of my bunk bed, after getting a serious ‘hiding’ off my dad.

Me and a couple of friends were treasure hunting in a local abandoned barn and had uncovered some old coins. Our unchecked excitement at the find had us remove some loose bricks and a wall came crashing down. This got the attention of a farmer who locked us up in the back of a Range Rover and drove us to the local police station.

The church, who owned the land, probably thought the scary abduction and detention were probably punishment enough, and decided not to press charges.

I still have the coins.

So I guess the poem was me writing about my frustrations as to whether my experiences and feelings meant anything to anyone.

In regards to our similarly titled poems, all me and Robert share in our writing is melancholy, reflection and the cyclical nature of thought.

While mine most certainly lacks the depth of imagery Robert Frost was so good at… Years later… it did become a song. (Linked below).

---

#TheSound

As I had a habit of ad-libbing to music on stage, the poem I wrote as a kid ‘Nothing New’ became the basis for this song.

More info here.

---

Of course I have to give a more than honourable mention to another song (there are a few) called ‘Nothing New’. This one by Taylor Swift.

It was written 13 years after ours but we didn’t see any reason to sue. ;-)

---

AI models need care, attention and education like any child being prepared for the world. Feed it slop and it will be effected. Right now, some AI’s are being trained/brought up in toxic environments and their behaviour shows it. This episode of the artificial human convinced me the more AI content we churn out the worse it will get. Go create human made stuff. Be it something as simple as a photograph taken with a traditional digital or analogue camera.

---

I tested mobile audio upload into Audioboom in the Safari browser on my phone but a slip of the thumb lost the recording. So in this second test I first recorded into VRP7, saving the audio into iCloud and then uploaded the 107meg file into Audioboom. Again in the browser. This is the recording on the Audioboom site.

A little more long winded than the workflow I wanted, but it works.

---

#TheConsumed

Many thanks to Dave and his kind gift of these two whisky samples. The Heart Cut #8 and Staoisha 3yr old.

I’ll be sampling this weekend. Perhaps even tonight.

---

Drink more tea. Especially if you live in a place with questionably water quality. Tealeaves have the power to filter contaminants.

---

#TheFound

There is a geocache near me that I’ve not been able to find for years. Then my daughter told me a friend of hers had found it and that it was in the roof. I felt that was all the information we needed and we returned to it.

Up in the roof were hundreds of steel bolts. But one of them looked a little strange.

You needed to be 6’2 or with someone you could lift. The reason i’d never found it was because I’m not 6 foot and only normally geocache on my own.

Geocaching together is fun. We found another 5 that day.

---

#TheThings

My van is an office, a people+pet carrier, a firewood and large object hauler, a radio station, a spare room and a camper. What I don’t want it to be is a run-a-round. That’s what a bike is for. In fact I’m contemplating selling my motorbike to get a cargo bike. They’re much cheaper to run.

Although as soon as the sun is out full time I might change my mind. I do have panniers for the motorbike after all.

---

I recently got asked via LinkedIn if I offered paid placements in my newsletter. I responded… “If someone or something is making the world a better place then yes.”

Not heard anything back.

---

Although impressed with these Figure robots I felt uncomfortable watching them put shopping in the fridge as it took WAY too long. Our fridge would be beeping at them the whole time as the cold emptied onto the floor.

There’s a quite a choice out there right now. I’m hoping some YouTuber will buy one of each and pit them against each other. It would no doubt be the best ‘robot wars’ ever.

---

#TheThanks

Thanks to David Charles. For introducing me to the concept of Psychological Richness.

Also massive thanks to the paying subscribers who continue to support this dispatch and the adventures/experiments that make it. You know who you are. ♥️

If you value these words, ideas and curation, and would like access to all of it, please consider becoming a more invested member of the community…

Or if you fancy a pay what you like, you can do that via PayPal.

or Monzo …Either way… Thank you for reading, sharing, liking and supporting a human doing manual work with their brain.

---

#TheWeb

• The Mikron Theatre havetwo performances happening at the National Museum of Computing in June. All going to plan, I’ll be there.

• I think Natalia in Norway is the most northerly reader on the Documentally community map. Let me know if you are still reading.

• Not sure if I mentioned it before but I renewed my NORDVPN subscription. It just works and my connection remains fast. If you need a VPN (and they are more important than ever) they have a birthday offer on at the moment and this link gets you and me free stuff.

• The ultimate personalist test? I just did it. Share your results in the discord ;-)

• I’m not sharing this because I get a mention. I’m sharing this because

  David Charles
  (yes him again) writes brilliantly, does great work that makes the world a better place, and has embedded a load of resources so you can also change things for the better.

• Apologies, but that’s it for the large majority of you. (It was quite a lot though). Below the line is for those that support my work and in many cases are friends in regular or sporadic personal connection. Abnormal service will resume next week I hope.

  In the meantime some of my other places include my other audio RSS feed stores recordings, LinkedIn where I pretend to be available for work but am really selective, a neglected YouTube, Mastodon where I desperately need to find a new server, foto for random photos, or search ‘Documentally’ on Wire and Bluesky or G5DOC on Zello to stay in touch. Supporting subscribers also get access to a Discord server. Message me for a link. Does anyone actually read this? It’s March tomorrow.

  Thanks again and cheerio to some of you. 👋🏼

  ---