Cameras Cannot Capture Happiness 7-13-11

Anderson, South Carolina

When crossing torrid deserts in mid August tormenting images often appears to those seeking relief; mirages produce convincing images of lakes, leading one to believe life-giving water is close at hand. One never arrives at the oasis, finding only more incendiary sand. Sun-bleached bones of many seeking water have been found in the sands of the Mojave, Gobi, and Sahara deserts. Water’s so scarce in some arid regions such that many adults have never seen a surface of water larger than that found on a cup of tea.

Those trapped in worlds of addiction often believe happiness and nirvana to be found in the next fix, that perfect replication of life’s first high. Alas, neurophysiologic reality never allows the next high to be as good as the first. Addicts spend years crawling across the sands of addiction, forsaking all in vain attempts to turn undulating mirages of craving into reality. Their bones end up on marble slabs in county morgues.

For many, happiness is nearly as elusive. Most individuals figure out deserts aren’t good places to find water and stay out of them. Others in recovery have learned addiction leads to nothing but anonymous death. Not so obvious is the lack of happiness to be found in the deserts of secular materialism and consumerism. Hundreds of millions trapped in the fierce winds of consumption find themselves crawling through hot sands of consumer debt, never finding contentment or happiness. Gray box retailers offer little more than tormenting mirages of possibility. We simply cannot find contentment of soul in our next purchase, be it a line of powder cocaine, a 60” flat screen TV, even a castle.

In working with those recovering from drug addictions and alcoholism, I’m finding addiction to consumer goods to be as destructive and persistent in the lives of addicts. One recovering alcoholic living in a halfway house showed up at a meeting recently with a new journalist-grade digital camera in tow. The camera with one intermediate lens sells for about $4,000. Myself being a photographer I asked this fellow what kind of work he was planning to do with this Lamborghini of cameras, secretly lusting for such a camera myself. He said he needed to figure out how to use it first. He confessed he really likes his electronic toys. The camera cost more than the moped he drives since he lost his driver’s license. Perhaps I should check with local pawn shops for the next few weeks to get my next camera.

Another fellow living with his mother showed up on a $20,000 Harley Davidson motorcycle. I wonder what kind of economy allows unemployed addicts and alcoholics to drive a whole fleet of high-end Harleys. I probably don’t want to know.

As a photographer I’m in the curious position of people leaving fine cameras in my life, hoping I find them of great value; able to sell them or make use of them. It’s a bit like trying to find a market for 1976 eight-track tapes in a digital I-pod era; there just aren’t any buyers. Once state-of-the art Nikons, Canons, Minoltas, and Sonys accrete in my den. Yesterday I was offered $1.90 for a magnificent Nikon; like new, never having the first picture taken with it. In a digital age there’s no market for film cameras, no matter how good they are. Twenty years ago this Nikon was the latest consumer must have.

Retailers have developed the science of retail anthropology to a high level, always assuring us there will be some next must haves. The only problem is our addictions to ‘stuff’ will drive us into forlorn deserts as surely as powder cocaine or a lack of water.

Deserts are lonely places. The isolation of drug addiction is legendary; paranoia making users avoidant of all but their dealers. Isolation coming from addiction to secular consumerism and materialism is as deadening. The consequences of living fragmented lonely lives seeking our next electronic fix can be breath taking in their magnitude. Lives lived seeking consolation in ‘stuff’ are often devoid of people and community. Money issues are the number one cause of divorce. There are barren deserts devoid of community and relationships; making the Sahara seem crowded.

Police discovered remains of a woman in a house, dead for up to eight years. She was found in a home long assumed by neighbors to be deserted, after a call from a sister-in-law -- her only living family -- from whom she had been long estranged. Upon entering an upstairs bedroom at the residence, police located skeletal remains on the floor. The woman appeared to have died several years ago without anyone noticing. The dead woman's electricity was cut off years ago and mail failed to stack up on the doorstep because it was redirected to another address prior to 2003. Even government agencies neglected the woman, the state welfare office continued sending her checks despite the fact they were never cashed. Local authorities also failed to notice she had stopped paying property taxes. Was everyone so self absorbed as to not notice or care?

A 104-year-old heiress to a Montana copper fortune, who once lived in the largest apartment on New York City's Fifth Avenue, died in a Manhattan hospital. At 22, she married a poor bank clerk studying law, but they parted ways after only nine months. When she died she still owned a 42-room, multi-floor apartment on Fifth Ave, a Connecticut castle surrounded by 52 acres of land; and a Santa Barbara mansion built on a 23-acre bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Beginning in the 1960s, after her mother died, Clark rarely left her Fifth Avenue home overlooking Central Park. She was rarely seen by building staff, who delivered whatever she needed. She moved into a hospital in the 1980s. The reclusive millionaire spent the last two decades of her life living in New York City hospitals. Her fortune estimated at a half-billion dollars did nothing but buy her an isolated lonely life and opportunity to die alone in a rented hospital room.

A 68-year-old man's body was discovered deep in the Oregon woods on a one-lane dirt road by a U.S. Forest Service survey crew. The sheriff said the man didn't appear to have a permanent home. He had plenty of cash: $5,000 was found with his body. But that didn't help him as the central Oregon winter storms kept dumping snow on the area, fast and hard and merciless. He remained frozen in the snow until the spring melt. No one had reported him missing. Did this man like others decide he didn’t need anyone, only to die alone? Like the copper baroness, he died alone amidst everything he wanted except that which mattered mostly, a sense of community and belonging.

Recovery meetings often close with everyone holding hands as the group chair proclaims, “Let this circle represent that which we can’t do along we can do together. Even the best cameras in the world cannot capture images of the true happiness of those who realize wealth comes not from our stuff, but from timeless treasures of long-standing friendships and family, of being part of a circle of humanity.