Dear Vageesha,
Is keeping silent about being silent even better
I get what you mean. I had/have this dilemma for long now. As a nature photographer, if my living does not come from it, why do I even share my images? I may say - I share because others can enjoy them too. I think this is only an evasive partial truth. My ego has a lot to do in me sharing my images. I take solace in concluding that this is part of the grand design by the Nature itself. That said, is being silent is even better? I think saying "I want to remain silent" is better than remaining silent without letting others know. Saying so may make someone else think and may help give them another perspective to ponder over.
One should never wander into the jurisdiction of deciding or as much as suggesting how somebody else should feel and express something they are witnessing.
My mistake if I gave an impression that I criticized people. No, criticized some of their critique on those large forest prints. If God (or Nature in all grandeur as large forest prints in this case) presents herself in front of me I think my critique would be to kneel down with folded hands (or words amounting to it). The critique - "It is a wall of leaves and stems, seemingly no system to it" is a missed opportunity in my view. I thought Thomas' own comments - "...people have to keep looking because it so detailed that they have to give up wanting to identify everything" nicely sums up mystery of Nature those large prints portray. Further, I think, only very large prints can evoke such a response.
Beyond facts, all truths are personal truths.
There is an interesting
discussion between Einstein and Tagore.
Without getting deeper into philosophy of what truth and fact are, what you mentioned above is what Tagore seem to have believed in (truth is personal). Einstein thinks truth is independent and is not personal. Here are some snippets from the discussion:
EINSTEIN: Truth, then, or beauty, is not independent of man?
TAGORE: No, I do not say so.
EINSTEIN: If there were no human beings any more, the Apollo
Belvedere no longer would be beautiful?
TAGORE: No!
EINSTEIN: I agree with this conception of beauty, but not with
regard to truth.
TAGORE: Why not? Truth is realized through men.
EINSTEIN: I cannot prove my conception is right, but that is
my religion.
....
....
TAGORE: What we call truth lies in the rational harmony be-
tween the subjective and objective aspects of reality, both of
which belong to the superpersonal man.
EINSTEIN: We do things with our mind, even in our everyday
life, for which we are not responsible. The mind acknowledges
realities outside of it, independent of it. For instance, nobody
may be in this house, yet that table remains where it is.
TAGORE: Yes, it remains outside the individual mind, but not
the universal mind. The table is that which is perceptible by
some kind of consciousness we possess.
EINSTEIN: If nobody were in the house the table would exist all
the same, but this is already illegitimate from your point of view,
because we cannot explain what it means, that the table is there,
independently of us. Our natural point of view in regard to the
existence of truth apart from humanity cannot be explained or
proved, but it is a belief which nobody can lack—not even primitive beings.
We attribute to truth a superhuman objectivity. It
is indispensable for us—this reality which is independent of our
existence and our experience and our mind—though we cannot
say what it means.
TAGORE: In any case, if there be any truth absolutely unrelated
to humanity, then for us it is absolutely non-existing.
EINSTEIN: Then I am more religious than you are!
...
I think Einstein's deep belief in non-personal nature of "truth" makes him say that last line!
