“When Kurt Vonnegut said “we are here on Earth to fart around,” he had already spent most of his life grappling with the great questions through his writing. Clearly, he had made some sort of peace with things. My project, “A truce with the unknowables,” is based on the idea that at some point in life, one grapples with the great questions, but eventually it becomes clear that a lifetime of study cannot answer all the questions, and the need to get on with life and living – jobs and children and family and a thousand things – intrudes, and though one is still curious, philosophy must be set aside until some later time.
I am making this series of pictures because I want to explore this facet of getting older – or maybe just growing up.
Knowledge comes in varying degrees, from the greatest questions, such as why we are here or whether the universe has a creator, to the simple difficulty of comprehending quantum mechanics or compassing all of Shakespeare in a single lifetime. On the other hand, mundane occupations and banal concerns surround us so completely that, like the air we breathe, they can be hard to notice.
Some photos are meant to suggest or demonstrate methods of exploring and measuring the world and attempting to answer great questions. These have a physics bent because physics was my chosen avenue, when younger, to explore the world. Other photos illustrate those distractions and diversions, great and small, with which we console ourselves when it becomes apparent that answers to great questions are not all achievable.
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