“The most exalted ideals are held in the modest structures of our lives”: Sara Hendren.

About

This is a weblog ostensibly about “focal practices”, a concept developed by theorist Albert Borgmann. But because it is about focal practices, it is ultimately about the good life, and my striving towards it.

The term “focal practices” lends itself to a neat play on words: “focal” also invokes the idea of photography (which is a major preoccupation of this blog). And, to some degree, the very creation and writing of this blog is a bit of a focal practice too – a focal practice about a focal practice.

Before I run away with myself – some animating questions (which are not original, but at least they are mine):

• What does a life well-lived look like (and I am interested in primarily how things look like in practice), especially in reaction to/concert with today‘s technology?
• What does it look like to practice “photography” today? What is my practice?
• How do we understand our relationship with the world and those around us in the light of technology?
• Which of the technologies that I use are “things” and which are “devices”?

As embodied creatures with the capacity for loftier things, we are both conditioned by our circumstances and open to the potential for more. We are defined by our past and our surroundings, but never determined by them. As rational creatures, we can exercise self-control, we can, to a degree, direct ourselves towards those higher things. This blog serves as a scaffolding (one of many) for my upward climb.

Theology

I am a Christian, and what is written/thought about here will, inevitably (ideally?), be from that perspective. But this – I would like to think – is a perspective that is unique in that it is a perspective that encompasses within itself all true perspectives. This is a presumptuous claim that I would not make for myself (that is, I do not claim that I am a bearer of all truths), but is an outworking of the objective claims of Christ the King.

Blogging

I circle back around to the idea of having a blog as a vulture with amnesia circles the remains of a horse long-since flogged to death.

As the birds undertake their annual migration, so my soul longs to blog.

What's different about this time? Focus on the work, and the rest will follow.