Fighting the “Why Bother” Mentality
tw: depression
Hello friends! It is a new year, and I have decided that I need to change the way I approach talking about my photography online. More specifically, I need to start saying anything; I have a tendency to simply post photos with only a title and no explanation, and to value in-person conversations about photography above all else. That isn’t to say that face to face conversations are not important, but I need to recognize that I can better utilize my online platforms to share my ideas! My goal has become, then, to make a blog post every month this year, and hopefully afterwards as well. I might talk about my current projects, photos that I have recently discovered, or, like today, something generally relevant to film photography, through the lens of my own personal experience. Please join me as I basically ramble on for a while!
Graceland Cemetery, Chicago.
This month’s blog is titled “Fighting the ‘Why Bother’ Mentality,” and it is somewhat meta, since what I’m addressing directly affects whether I will continue to write these! Something I have struggled with in photography is the willingness to put effort into promoting my own work. I call this the why bother mentality, and it’s taken from a song by Weezer called, unsurprisingly, “Why Bother?” The chorus goes “Why bother?/It’s gonna hurt me/It’s gonna kill when you desert me/This happened to me twice before/It won’t happen to me anymore.” Now, here Rivers is singing about being afraid to enter new relationships, but I think he’s speaking to a larger state of mind, one that I experience often. I’ll get back to the ways in which that song applies to me, but I want to explain how this feeling has pervaded my photography.
At this point, almost two years since graduating college, I no longer have doubts that I am an excellent photographer. To my own eyes, my work evokes the senses of calm and awe that I would like it to, and I have a body of photographs that I am very proud of. I have grown significantly in the last year as well, learning to shoot with medium and large format cameras, as well as refining my knowledge about which cameras work for me. In short, I am happy with where I am as a photographer. However, I struggle to do more to get my work seen than posting some photos on Instagram; I don’t even print my work most of the time! It’s hard for me to reach out to other photographers or show my work in a gallery, and this despite the fact that, as the manager of a photo lab, I have access to everything I need to take these steps towards furthering my career. At the end of the day, my answer is always “why bother?” But I am no longer satisfied with that, and I need to at least determine why that is my default response, which leads me to consider the other ways this mentality has infected my life.
Danville, PA, across the Susquehanna River; taken with the Mamiya M645, which I learned how to use in 2021.
Most people that I know in person know that I struggle with depression, but I don’t talk about it online almost ever. This last year, 2021, I was hit with a stronger depression than I have experienced since my early days of college, to the point that I seriously began to consider going to therapy and getting myself diagnosed; this was the first time it felt like something beyond me naturally responding to the events in my life. Coexisting alongside this, and undoubtedly informing my emotional response, was the fact that I have graduated college, and the relationships I formed then have necessarily begun to change. I remained, after graduating, near my college, where most of my friends were still in classes, whether in grad school or working for the university. I chose to stay in the area precisely because of them; our final year together had been cut short by the pandemic, and I wanted to enjoy more time with them, along with our extended circle of connections. And to be clear, I am glad that I did this! I was not emotionally prepared to live alone in a new place by myself, and this time has allowed the transition to post-college life to be easier for me.
Weko Beach, Michigan; I took this image this month, and would not have been able to if I had not stayed in southwestern Michigan after graduating.
However, I should have been aware that things were still going to change over time; my life as a full-time employee is fundamentally different from my friends’ graduate studies, and perhaps it was inevitable that we would drift apart a little. I have realized that while it was not inappropriate to hold on when I did, it is getting time to accept that things are changing. Of course I will continue to be friends with the people that I spent now five years with, the ones I love who are a part of me now. But it’s alright if things change, for instance if I don’t see them as often. And I think that so far everything I’ve said has been healthy and natural. But where I move past that is when I think “maybe I should invite the guys over tonight. Ah, but they’re busy with school, and I’ve got other things to do. Why bother, I’ll just see them another time.” Now I’m self-defeating, allowing myself to cut off opportunities that I might have had to make more memories with my closest friends. And I’m feeling the same about romantic relationships; after a string of failed attempts to get to know people and form solid connections, I feel (as my college roommate will tell you is not a new occurrence) that dating is just a waste of time for me. I’m aware how incel-y that sounds, and of course I know that these feelings come and go. But that is how I’m feeling these days, and I need to acknowledge that if I’m going to move on.
The common thread here among these various issues of mine is the question of effort versus reward. If I ask my friends to come over and they say no, then I’m left feeling hurt (even if it’s not about me), and I feel less inclined to ask them over again in a situation like that. If I express interest in someone and they turn me down, that hurts, and I feel like I don’t want to experience that again. These incidents leave me exhausted, and all for nothing, or so I feel. In these situations my dad’s words come to me: “the only person you can control is yourself.” These are words to live by, but I distort them and add this modifier: “so then, if I control myself and don’t ask anything of anyone, I will be better off.” And of course that’s a mistake to think that, one, I could fully isolate myself from anyone, and two, that I cannot ask anything of anyone. The question I run into, though, is how long can I accept being rejected or failed by the ones I care about? It’s hard to see, for example, the possibility of a successful romantic relationship after all my efforts have failed in the long run.
Hammond, Indiana. I took this on a walk by myself; is isolation really the worst thing for me if I can make art like this? (Hint: no but yes)
So how does this tie into photography? It’s the same situation. In my relationships, like in my photography, I am confident that I bring something to the table; I am a good person and have qualities that are fun to engage with. Does that mean, then, that just like with the other things I fear rejection of my photography? Certainly my work is not that far removed from my identity, and so it follows that perhaps I fear a critique of my photos that shakes the foundation of what I do. And that effort-reward dichotomy comes into play as well here; the thought of applying to be part of a show, choosing the images, printing and framing my work, and paying a fee for all of it, only to have my photos rejected by the public during the show, feels, once again, exhausting. Why bother, when so many of my other personal efforts seem to fail, would this one be any different? How can I know that I will succeed?
And yet, my man Puppet, one of my favorite artists, has the answer: “I ran away again/Long flights alone, learned to be my own best friend/Just along for the ride, when I said I'm gone I meant it/Shot down, kicked around, near the end when/Brought back by the ones who listened.” At the end of the day, I know that my friends will indeed be there when I need them. Why would they have stuck around this long with me if they didn’t want to? And yes, each of my romantic relationships have failed in the sense that they have ended, but I have grown through each of them, learning how to be better than before. And I know that I have people who support my photography; my teachers who helped me grow, my family who always enthusiastically check out my latest work, and my photo friends who are always down for a great discussion about art. I have to call out a few specifically, Jesus Arriaga and Carin Weston, fellow members of the Lab Rats (a group that’s just the three of us), who have helped me stay motivated to present my work to them and to a larger audience. Without them, I probably wouldn’t be writing this blog! And my housemates Nico, Noah, and now Patrick, have consistently talked through these things with me, and I know I’d be in a less healthy place without them.
Me and my friends at a home showing of my project The Boricua Dialogues; my show had been cancelled by the pandemic, and everyone came together to appreciate and celebrate my work!
The question became, somewhere in the middle of this blog, how do I end this positively? I have not yet resolved these questions and issues I raised, and it’s hard to find a conclusion to them (as you can see, since I just spent eight paragraphs talking about them). But I am resolving to work on them, starting with this blog; writing is something that I have been encouraged to unite with my photography since junior year of college (thanks Marc!), and actually publishing this, however imperfect, is one step to combating the why bother mentality. As for the other issues, I’ll take them one day at a time, giving grace to myself and my friends, and remembering that a balance of alone time and social interaction is still the best way to go on. And I should go to therapy! I’ve been recommended that before, and I need to overcome that particular inertia and go, and I will. But in the meantime, I’ll keep moving forward, and keep talking about these things. If you’ve read this far, thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy my work!
Songs referenced: “Why Bother?” from Pinkerton, by Weezer, and “Angry All the Time,” by Puppet
Follow my photo friends: @jesusarriagaphotos, @carinweston