Patience Through Difficulty

Life Above the Tibetan Prayer Flags

I always look for interesting photos to take with my drone. The more that I fly, the more I watch YouTube University videos on color theory and cinematography, the deeper my passion and desire to take a better photograph improve. In my mind I will think about a great shot, but it usually doesn’t come out just perfect the way that I saw it in my head.

Other times I will fly the drone from one area to another, and I’ll stop at the viewfinder and it will be a perfect picture so I’ll snap a photo and it will be the best one of the set. Or right when my battery is about to die (I stop and land at 20% every time), I will snap one last photo of the scene and that one will turn out to be the best.

Photograph of Albuquerque Old Town Small Courtyard during Dia De Los Muertos celebration October 2023

The more that I fly, the more ideas and inventions and innovations pop into my head like seeds in spring breaking through the cold black soil, based upon my previous experience as a mine engineer and surveyor, my education including a Master’s degree in Mining Engineering, and now the very practical considerations and aspects of growing the business of United Aerial Service LLC.

I feel like this creativity and creative output is also a direct result of the creative writing from this blog, of opening up my heart and mind for the last few months, in a way that integrated my heart, mind, life, past and future in a way that is entirely new to me.

Something that always interests me and surprises me about flying my drone is that, in my mind’s eye I’ll have the perfect shot planned out, or I’ll see a scene I want to capture and I’m sure that it will turn out beautiful from the air, but when I get my drone in the air it’s nothing but ugly, gray rooftops and swamp coolers, and the colors aren’t quite as vibrant as I thought they’d be.

But I didn’t start this blog to write about drone photography, but I just felt like writing about it, and it’s strange how little I’ve written about drone photography considering that writing and photos are the two activities that I spend the most time doing.

I think part of that has to do with starting a business, in my previous academic life, the priority was to get ideas out into the world, then as a mining engineer I had to keep all ideas to myself, and now I’m trying to find a happy medium between growing and developing my ideas, demonstrating value to potential customers, and protecting my intellectual property from potential competitors.

Patience Through Difficulty

One of my greatest challenges throughout my life has been patience. I have been very fortunate to be quick with my thoughts, and understanding, and oriented towards taking action rather than analysis by paralysis. I have never been afraid to stand up for what I believe in. But being patient during a challenging situation has been a tremendous challenge.

Even right now, the challenge of writing about being patient is difficult for me, whereas writing about flying my drone flowed quite well. My natural inclination when something is challenging is to find a new solution, another way around the mountain, the way that water constantly seeks lower ground and the path of least resistance.

Even though I don’t listen to a particular twitter space I used to attend religiously, occasionally I will venture into more of the obscure and “bohemian” groups, which can get off the rails pretty quickly but they are always interesting. Usually they’re some type of spiritual group, and maybe not exactly 100% scientific based, but I also can appreciate the belief in crystals and things like that.

In one of these spaces, a guy was talking about how he uses AI, and the host instantly rebutted that the AI is using him. During that same discussion, someone was talking about how he was blessed with something, I think it was how he day trades and makes $75,000 per day but lost $25,000 in a few minutes at the end of the day. So he was talking about how his ability to make money like this was a gift, and that same host instantly rebutted that maybe this “gift” is more of a curse because it causes him to devalue money, and think about things in term of money, and how there’s no inherent value.

I’m not exactly sure what I’m trying to say, other than the fact that these days I do my best to challenge myself on the things I used to never think about or challenge myself on. When I was in college, I was studying mining, which made my life pretty simple and straight forward: I had a north star, all I really had to do was my homework and go to class, and I knew that I would be successful after graduation and that I would make enough money to live comfortably and achieve a level of success that I desired. What I neglected at this time was my creativity, my heart, my feelings, an entire side of my brain.

Now that I’m working on that aspect things are really coming together for me, and I will continue to have patience during difficulty.