We can handle only so much truth. There are two parts to this that one must consider. The first is that the rich young man was fairly good. He was keeping the law of Moses, and he was sincere.
The second is that Christ loved him, and wanted him: so identified his idol, his weakness. Which was his wealth. It is so hard to enter the kingdom of God carrying an idol.
And the third is that the prosperity doctrine is condemned here by Christ. It was orthodox teaching from the Rabbis, referring to Proverbs, and the many promises of blessings that would come from obedience to the Law of Moses in this life. But Christ reverses this. The rich are not blessed, they are handicapped.
17As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 18Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. 19You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.'” 20He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” 21Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” 22When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
23Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” 24And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” 26They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” 27Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
28Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” 29Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, 30who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions – and in the age to come eternal life. 31But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
Now, we should not interpret this as the Disciples did: that the rich cannot enter the kingdom of GOd. Jesus says that this cn happen: there are biographies of saints, from Francis (of Assisi) to the Henry Hudson, giving all their monies to charity — and money they had a lot of.
But we should not hold our security in our bank balance, or consider ourselves righteous by the number of possessions we have. We have to be grateful for what we have. Ironically, the best advice here comes from a photography gear site, but run by someone who shoots a lot of stuff.
Back in my days running Backpacker magazine, we had an “authenticity” metric that we developed and practiced. I think it’s time for that here in the photography arena, as well.
The Backpacker metric was “bag nights.” You got a bag night if you spent your sleeping hours in a sleeping bag in the wild (not your backyard ;~). One of the reasons we developed that metric was to make sure we were practicing what we preached. However, it also turned out to be a key differentiator between our magazine and some other “outdoor” magazines that pretended they covered the same territory as us.
Consider this, you make tents and two magazines come to you see if you’ll advertise. Magazine #1 says they’re the #1 outdoor magazine, but most of their stories are about personalities, they don’t have a significant field editor staff, and they have high turnover in subscribers. Magazine #2 says that their 20 editorial staff (including the graphics department) spent an average of 40 bag nights a year, with a couple logging over 100. Oh, and they do have a large field staff and their long-term subscriber rates are amongst the highest of all magazines. Which would you pick to advertise your tents?
Authenticity is important. It means that your opinions are based upon real use and not casual contact with something.
The Internet is filled with non-authentic opinions. That’s not to say that there aren’t plenty of authentic ones, only that it’s often difficult to discern which is which.
What worries me is the high dependence upon product measurement numbers. We saw this same measurement-happy craze back in the HiFi era, where frequency and power numbers suddenly became the primary way to judge product. As I write this, DxO has just produced their “numbers” for the Nikon V3, for instance, and the emails are already pouring in bemoaning the fact that the V3 doesn’t score better than the V1 or V2. Uh, okay. But what’s that really mean? Are those numbers “authentic?”
What if I were to tell you that I could give you a camera that had 30% more pixels with basically the same image quality when measured in a standard sized print? Would you want one? I hope so, because that many more pixels should equate to more acuity, all else equal. That’s close to what I’d expect out of the V3 over the V2, by the way. I’m a little worried about the small drop in DR on the V3, but without a camera to test in the wild yet, I can’t make any definitive assessment. However, I’d bet that on modest sized prints I’d prefer the V3 over the V2. We’ll see when I eventually get some time with the camera.
So where am I headed with all this?
Today I’m going to introduce a new metric, one that I hope you’ll take to heart and start tracking: viewfinder hours. Simply count the number of hours you’re primarily working the viewfinder. I’d count wandering the streets of your town for 60 minutes with your camera looking for photos and taking one every few minutes as “a viewfinder hour.” Obviously, you don’t need to be looking through the camera’s actual viewfinder the entire hour; you can use your eyes as a virtual viewfinder, as long as you eventually put the camera up to your face and consider or take the shot.
The people I respect in the review industry shoot a lot of frames: more than I do, and I shoot a fair few. Thom goes on to talk about measurement.
And is advice is good: spreadsheet the stuff. See how much time you spend working with this instrument or that thing. Log your workouts, your camera time… but log your time in the word. You do not need much equipment to be good.
And in may situations … including getting the photos I have just linked to — a lot of gear would have missed the shot. Less is frequently more.
Man and woman of God, your priority must be God. For everything else will fade and be destroyed. So consider how your time is spent, rather than if you are in the top 1% of assets, or how the stock market has adjusted your net worth today.
Finally, find your inner GAS (Gear acquisition syndrome) and ablate it. For, that, too is an idol.
