The gallery of "killed negatives" bearing the hole indicating no replication is an interesting and curious practice. https://petapixel.com/2016/03/28/many-grea

The gallery of "killed negatives" bearing the hole indicating no replication is an interesting and curious practice. https://petapixel.com/2016/03/28/many-great-depression-photos-killed-editors-hole-punch/ https://petapixel.com/2016/03/28/many-great-depression-photo... This article, however, confuses me. I've always been interested on notions of cultural identity and otherness in Japanese history - instead there's this strange constellation of disparate and only somewhat amusing historical anecdotes. The ending upsets me. I've experienced too many different variants and strains of this kind of New Age scientific mysticism clothed in a language of Japanese pseudo-Zen buzzword soup that is usually a segue into discussing their recent mushroom trip. Reading my own words back to myself, this reads as being flippant and dismissive but then I think about the number of times this has actually happened and how it makes me nauseous. I'm being a bit harsh here, but this is more common than I'd like it to be and I'd really wish people would stop using Japanese religion and spirituality as a crutch for their psychedelic dabbling that always speaks to what feels like religious voyeurism. I should speak more specifically as to why this is upsetting. There is a vein of thought in Japanese spirituality and to some degree, the larger whole of Asian mysticism that lends itself to this sort of ambiguity and perhaps more accessible kind of rigorous contemplation. I think a key observation would be an example like Zen koans where perhaps the pursuit of meaning and the act of moving towards insight is in itself valuable even if you never actually obtain a perfect idea of what it is you're supposed to get out of anything. As if to say, you're not supposed to suppose it at all would be one interpretation. So this cuts a few ways. On one hand, some practitioners can wave their hands around and speak profusely on very little. On the other hand, there's a great deal of credence towards what you give is what you get and ultimately who is to judge how people make sense of what imbues them with a state of wonder? What upsets me is the tone of the article is monotonous and routine. It is all too familiar. The preamble bearing the quotations of German nihilism of some sort. A remarkably shallow critique of Japan's cultural and historical identity lacking the rigor to appropriately challenge what is deserving towards its reticence to admit its racism. And ultimately what does the passage of words sublimate into? A sandwich containing extraneous descriptions of shit and pleonasm.