This morning I found myself looking at my phototography website; really looking at it, as if I were a stranger stumbling upone it for the first time. And as I wandered through the photos there, I noticed myself having two distinctly different reactions. One was wow, there are some really nice photographs here, and the other was man, I really need to update this old dog… everyone must think I’ve fallen completely off the radar… this stuff is so old… where is all the new stuff?! Why am I such a failure?! WHY?!!

As I sat there, frustrated with myself for how neglectful I’ve been in regards to that site (and my photography career in general) in the last 9 months or so, I started trying to understand why. And as I got more honest and settled down, it became clear. The reason my photography life is supposedly languishing comes down to a simple, perhaps confounding, truth: I don’t care.

Consider, if you will, the nature of CARE. On the surface, saying “I don’t care” probably sounds either at best indifferent, or at worst caloused, even flippant. We use the phrase all the time, and it usually doesn’t make us bristle. The word can mean two different things. Indifference is one of them, and the other is a lot closer to attention, focus, or carefulness.

“What do you feel like for dinner?”
“Eh, I don’t care…”

vs.

“Why are you ignoring something that used to be a major life goal of yours?”
“I just don’t care”
“What?! WHY?! You SHOULD care!”

Merlin Mann wrote a fantastic article, entitled “First, care.” I urge you to go read it. Here’s one of my favorite passages:

You “focus” on the one thing you care about, as you “unfocus” on everything else. If not for every minute of your life, at least for the time you set aside to pursue the thing that matters.

If that sounds fancy and oversimplified, then you “care” about too many things. Period.

So, if I say that the reason my photography, at least in a commercial sense, is in a weird period of dormancy, and, upon reflection, it becomes obvious that the honest reason why is that “I don’t care,” then what? My knee-jerk reaction is to put an “enough” at the end of the phrase… “because I don’t care enough!” Most people would. Most people out there who are striving to become something that they aren’t yet, almost invariably speak in those kinds of terms. Need to… have to… should… not enough… And the people at the “top” (at least those who feel the need to constantly advise the struggling masses beneath them) reinforce it by using the same words. And frankly, I’m weary and even a becoming a little offended at that kind of thinking. It implies pressure and obligation and a system of measuring your involvement with anything based on an underlying motivator of guilt. Because if you don’t care enough, the real meaning is: you should feel guilty because you don’t care enough.

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO LIVE THAT WAY? You don’t HAVE to do anything. You don’t NEED to just get out and shoot more photos, or network more, or whatever it is that the guilt dispensers in your field would have you believe.

You simply need to care. About what? About whatever it is that you care about.

It really is that simple. If you deeply don’t care (even for now), then do something you care about and see where that takes you. Stop feeling guilty for what you don’t care about. Trust your gut for a change. Don’t think “Oh my god I don’t care! What’s wrong with me?! Why don’t I care anymore?!” Try instead, “hmm… interesting… apparently I don’t care about this right now… what DO I care about?” and see where that leads you in terms of personal happiness, satisfaction, fullfillment, and purpose.

Like Merlin said, “‘focus’ on the one thing you care about, as you ‘unfocus’ on everything else.”

So if you are reading this and find yourself identifying with the sensation of “creative guilt,” remember this: guilt implies crime. You, by honestly admitting that you don’t currently care enough to do something, have not committed a crime. No, you haven’t. Turn off that voice in your head that says you have. You are not committing a crime against humanity or yourself or anyone else by not doing whatever IT is. Stop it. Stop thinking that way and live your life. And forgive me, this will sound very ‘inspirational speaker,’ but: Live your life based not on guilt, but on Love. Do what you simply want to do because you love doing it. Follow the love. It just might lead you to the place where you actually create things that matter and that you can be proud of, regardless of whether anyone sees or knows about it.

A brief example: One of my best friends, Evan, has been sending myself and a few other friends songs, via email, for a few months now. Just one song at a time, attached to an email, sent to about 10 people. That’s it. There’s no website, no campaign, no Facebook fan page, no Tumblr blog, no fancy delivery mechanism/marketing device. He’s just writing songs, and (for now) sharing them with his friends the old-fashioned way. And we typically just listen and write back something boring like “cool man, keep up the good work.” It’s small, completely off the radar, and (honestly) seemingly insignificant. Except that it isn’t actually insignificant at all, for one important reason: He cares — not about what we think — he cares to do the creative act in the first place. He’s doing it because he cares to. I’m not gonna lie: it’s powerfully inspiring and forces me to rethink what it fundamentally means to create art and share it with others.

My version of what he’s doing is two separate websites that I haven’t told anyone about. One is for writing, and the other is for photos of mostly my family that I’ve shot on film and scanned. No one visits them, because (almost) no one knows about them. I want it that way, at least for now. I’m trying to work out my creative salvation by caring about something and doing it, even if no one sees it. And you know what? It’s working. I’m caring. I’m following the love and the love is starting to follow me back. I’m gravitating towards the things that I care about, and sluffing off the heavy burden that the guilt dispencers would have me carry. It’s liberating and happifying and fun.

So: First, care. Then, do. And don’t worry so much about the space in between.