I don’t get it!

October 9, 2012 //

Yesterday I read a blog on how to increase traffic on your site. I came across it accidentally, I was not looking for it. Can somebody explain to me, what is achieved, when I increase traffic on my blog? It sounds to me like how to improve the bottom line of your business. Is creating a blog a business or a matter of self-expression? Am I a better person when I have five-thousand visitors a day?

Of course I am excited when people like my images or my puppets or what I have to say, but when I read an About page where 1350 entries start with: “Thank you for visiting my blog”, doesn’t that mean that the blog owner is just good at pushing the Like button on other people’s blogs? For me personally it is a real deterrent!

Don’t get me wrong, it is a truly innocent question and I don’t want to offend anyone. I have seen blogs with thousands of followers and they deserve every single one of them for their quirky and/or informative content – I myself follow a few of those – but then I also have seen a blog with a total of seven posts of average everyday babble and more than 2000 followers. So, what is the motivation?

Tags art, blog, friends, images, introvert, nature, Philosophy, photos, reflections, thoughts

Categories Art, Life, Photography

What is old age?

October 8, 2012 //

I read a disturbing article. It wasn’t really an article, but a profiling piece by a German foundation that helps older women to find jobs. It said that women over 50 have a hard time finding jobs when they become unemployed (I think for men it is not that easy either). I have heard this before from other sources but thought it was scare-mongering. I find it hard to believe that a society can discard such a large group and valuable resource by making 50 the cut-off point for participation in working life. When I was still living there, Germany didn’t have a huge culture of volunteer work either. So what are you doing when you are over 50 there? Is it really old age? Do you really have to start preparing for retirement? S-c-a-r-y!

It slowly dawns on me there is no way I could go back to Germany, even if I wanted to. This door is firmly closed. There is, however, this other interesting research I read a while ago, and it has stuck to my mind: In old age, you revert back to your first language, as you will loose the ability to speak your second language. I think old age might become very frustrating for me. Ah well, I always can talk to my puppets!

Tags art, images, language, life, nature, Philosophy, photography, photos, reflections, thoughts, vacation

Categories Art, Life, Photography, Relationships

Two hundred

October 7, 2012 //

It is my two hundredth post today. Time to reflect on what I am doing here :).

In my self-experiment, I have come to the conclusion that, yes, the blog sphere is a parallel world. It magnifies what happens in the real world. One can potentially connect with everybody, but connections are still based on chance encounters. Not unlike going to a bar and starting a conversation with the person standing right next to you. You can have a brief chat, a lovely all-evening conversation and that is it – or if you like the person very much you can even meet again and become friends. But like in real life a solid connection takes time and effort.

I am a bit of a fossil. I love to have long and meaningful conversations and I treasure the luxury of time to process the given information. In the parallel world I am struggling with this valuable commodity of time. I read heaps of interesting snippets, but often I have the feeling I can’t process them correctly.

It is a cycle of taking in, taking in, taking in…. alert, alert, information overload… Crash! Reboot… Maybe I need a new operating system!

Tags art, images, nature, Philosophy, photography, photos, reflections, thoughts, vacation

Categories Art, Life, Photography

End of Silence

October 6, 2012 //

Silent week is over. I thoroughly enjoyed choosing the black and white images for my blog and I might continue with it for a while. The image today was taken on Coromandel peninsula. You might have noticed that many of my images show deserted places and low clouds. It is not a feature I am searching for, it is just sooo New Zealand. In Maori the land is called Aotearoa, which means “land of the long white cloud”. When there is a thick layer of fluffy sheep clouds I often have the feeling of being under a lid in a huge toy world.

In real life, the production of puppets has slowed right down as life has taken over, but I am slowly getting back into the right mind-set. My next two projects are a puppeteering workshop with the Older Women Network in Auckland early next month, and I am also working on an exhibition of puppets. The exhibition is firmed up in my head and I now have to find a venue.