Beliefs

A picture of an old friend has made me realize something about this person. Have they changed or have they always been the same? Are they sane or are they insane? Are they sure or are they unsure? These basic criteria can be determined temporarily aswell. A person can be briefly insane, or briefly unsure, or a person can be the same for a brief period of time and so forth. The basic point I have found through this coincidental observation, is that this person seems to grow inside themselves manufacturedly. They follow a step-by-step path of "personal growth". They want to grow. They consider that as growing. They believe life has become or has always been about this. I don't believe that humans ought to deny their feelings, but sometimes I do believe that their feelings are not their own, which is what is the most relevant point in the picture I saw. Does it make a difference whether that picture was taken or not? Why has that picture been taken? What did they think when that picture was taken, and also before it was taken, and after? Susan Sontag in On Photography briefly summarizes what I am trying to say. "So successful has been the camera's role in beautifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful." and "The destiny of photography has taken it far beyond the role to which it was originally thought to be limited: to give more accurate reports on reality (including works of art). Photography is the reality; the real object is often experienced as a letdown."