forgive me for not writing sooner. I’ve been in transit, moving through a couple of places, and now I’m in Berlin, walking through streets that I know in and out from my early years in photography. At some point, a few days ago, I had to think of the ancient puzzle of the ship that, over its lifetime, has lots of parts replaced – is it still the same ship?

The city has changed quite a bit over the past ten years. Tourism is ugly as everywhere. Parts of the city now look like any other major city in the Western world. Rents are still ridiculously low, and yet construction is crazy (I don’t know according to which economic theory they keep building office space, apartments, “town houses,” and so forth). Twelve years ago, when there were still ruins and “Brachland” galore, I made a series that I called “Berlin Walls” – images of all kinds of walls all over Berlin. I did not make any images of the real “wall.” The project became my first international publication, but eventually the prints got lost. I’m still drawn to Berlin’s walls. At the same time, when I walk around the city now, I ask myself: am I still the same person, or have the past seven years, years I spent mostly abroad, changed me?

My first impression was: damn, I’m still the same – what have I done with these years! Eventually, though, my mood became less bleak. Physically, I feel the same indeed, which I guess is not a bad thing. But when I talk to people, I realize that my years in Manhattan have added a perspective on many things that I did not have before. Whatever the future brings, I guess I have become a lover of America – certainly of its ideals, its subtle nonchalance, and its many unwritten codes that, if applied with skill, can turn into an artform. However, for the time being I’m here. But I needed to send a note to Manhattan, and to you – I know I was supposed to come in, but then all these travels came up.

As always,

J.

Dear Jens,

I’m not sure what to think about the ship, and you, and the question of whether anything remains the same over the years. I visited Berlin a couple of months ago, and found it terribly charming. The large apartments that everyone seems to have, the pre-war houses, the large boulevards. Almost like Paris, with a hint of Moscow. I felt a sense of great familiarity – the strange mix of harshness and liveliness somehow spoke to me. But then, I worry that this may be the view of the outsider. I spoke to some Germans and learnt that Berlin has high unemployment and many social problems. Perhaps I fell victim to a kind of romanticism that one can only afford if one knows one shall leave again. Perhaps your perspective, or what I perceive of it in your photo of the bleak wall, is more realistic than my dreamy conception of Berlin. But I worry about you, as I so often do. Today, however, I find it hard to put my finger on the source of the worry – I guess feel I might lose you to this other city. What about the spell of Manhattan? I know I shouldn’t write in this personal way. Once I told you not to forget your old friends. Now I want to say: don’t forget your new friends. When you come back, we shall talk about the question of change, and old and new selves.

Until then, try to remember that Manhattan misses its inhabitants when they travel.

Dr. Hare

Dear Dr. Hare,

thanks so much for your reply. I just noted that you did not send me a season’s greetings card, and that you actually never do that. I still get cards from people I met in the distant past, before I decided to do only things I like, with people I like. That was in 1999. Some of the cards from before that time depress me – they remind me of how terrible “the human condition” can be. This year some cards were so bad that I dropped the idea of doing any such stuff myself. I considered posting a ‘worst of’- vs. a ‘best of’-collection on NFN, but I guess that would not be fair. Perhaps I should just post the attempt at poetry from my bank?

Very much looking forward to seeing you in your office between holidays.

J.

Dear Jens,

people who send “Happy Holidays” cards can be a bit tiresome, I know. They want to show you that, by now, they have five children who wear expensive clothes, will grow up to be important, and have another five kids of their own. Or they want to make clear that, economic crisis or not, they are doing great. Or they are sentimental, because their lives are full of nonsense, and for ten minutes a year, when they carry home their Christmas tree, they get to reflect on it, and then they sob and wonder whether they still have friends.

But I always think that some of the card-writers are just plain lonely, and hope that some other lost soul will respond. You need to be gracious.

We shall get over these days, as always. And I’ll see you next week.

Dr. Hare

it strikes me that Americans have raised competition to an art form. I don’t mean that Americans are more competitive than other people. It’s more about the idea of winning, and an interesting readiness to accept a complete lack of skill (I’m thinking of a TV show about people climbing Mount Everest – the idea that one should be a skilled climber doesn’t seem to figure in their motivations, it’s all about “personal achievement,” “winning a battle,” and so forth).

But what really interests me is the culture of competition here, the rituals, and the social codes, especially before and after the actual confrontation. For example in the political arena: People can beat the snot out of each other for months, but when that’s done that’s done – the winner is generous and humble, the loser is professional and displays some humor, and you move on. Then, when the time comes, you go another round. In comparison, political battles in European democracies seem quite awkward and clumsy. Too much resentment, too much dead-seriousness. And perhaps most fundamentally: no manners! There’s a game-like aspect to the culture here that I think I’m coming to like. It makes it easier for people not to be enemies. Or does it?

I hope this makes sense to you. I’m really interested how you, as a psychotherapist, see this.

Oh, and I got home safely from the last session, across the park through this crazy blizzard. I’m still embarrassed about how I showed up in your office, all cold and wet, like a mountain man.

Jens

Dear Jens,

it was interesting to get a sense of your mountain persona the other day, to see you covered in snow and quite liking it. I know what you mean about American adventure tourism. It’s not about skill, no. It’s more like a substitute for therapy: fighting your “inner demons,” that’s how people tend to describe it. When it is about the beauty of nature, and the healing powers of solitude, I’m a little more hopeful about it. But why do I even mention this – for you, as I am well aware, I shall never be able to compete with the mountains.

About your other point. Bad losers, well, that’s a difficult topic. I’m not a coach, and I resist the temptation to sell the kind of support that’s geared toward winning. But what does all this have to do with you? I think I see you as two persons here. I recall that you were a rather ambitious athlete at some point, and I sense that you might have the sportsman’s attitude to competition, and having a beer afterward. But there’s also this other side to you. I would have suspected that you find quite a few things not worth competing for. Why are you thinking about this? And why didn’t you mention it when we spoke at my office? I felt that you didn’t really talk about the things that were on your mind. I’m a bit puzzled and uneasy. You should come in soon again. Don’t miss next week’s appointment. In part, I had you in mind when I decided to be working between Christmas and New Years.

Yours,
Dr. Hare

this year, it seems that I just can’t bring myself to go to Europe for the summer. I don’t know what it is. Maybe the new apartment? I feel like I live the life of some pampered movie star here, compared to the old place up in the sky near Hudson River, with the wind howling and all. When a light bulb goes out, one mouse click on the building homepage, or a quick call, and a friendly person shows up and puts in a new bulb. We found a company that is now fixing our old furniture – pieces that broke down over the years, while moving from place to place, and I can’t help to see something symbolic in that. I look at the park, walk around the new place, still somewhat in disbelief about my new life, and wonder if the old saying is true after all – that once you cross a bridge to Manhattan, you never have to cross a bridge again.

Which is not entirely true for me: I have quite a few trips lined up across the continental US – the West Coast again (whatever people say, I loved it), Miami (which I also kind of like), and other places. Compared to flying to Europe, flying across the US feels to me like taking a cab. And, as you know, while I love to work hard, I also tremendously value convenience. But I do worry: Am I getting old and mellow?

And where does this leave my Mountain friends? I will be back in the Dolomites next winter, but for this summer, I just can’t bring myself to book a flight. Or, I know that I most likely will go in the end, but it puzzles me that I am even hesitating. Last night we watched the latest Bond movie (via Netflix – as you know, I do not go to movie theaters), and I found funny that each episode gravitates back to the same old sets. So far, I’ve not been like that – I have not been to the town where I was raised for many, many years, and I may never go back at all. I’m just not interested.

OK, I’m rambling. Not much new here. I had strawberries today and made a photo of them, on a new desk I just bought. I feel very well, don’t worry (with a lot of exercise and the warmer temperatures, the arm feels much better now and it may heal almost completely). You seemed so rooted and content in your office when I last saw you there, I wonder whether I feel the need to entertain a life away from my computer-plus-camera at all.

Jens”

“Dear Jens,

I look at the photo, and I think, isn’t that the table from the Swiss design company you mentioned? So, you are eating your Manhattan strawberries on your Swiss (if not to say mountainy) table, and tell me that you are losing your grip on your connections to Europe. What can I say? I think they are much deeper than it may feel to you now, and I think they are very valuable. Do go back, and do find a place in your life for friendship and for the past.

Of course, for the sake of our conversations, I may wish that you stayed, and for once kept a regular schedule with your sessions here. But I am not sure that this is what I should be saying. The fact that you are writing to me about this tells me that inside of you you know that your friends in the mountains will feel cheated. Do not they worry about your arm? Will they not feel your staying away as punishment and retreat? I think you should go, and make people see that you are still their friend.

But here is another consideration: If you feel that you need time to heal from the shock of the accident, then they shall have to understand. Only don’t make it seem like you are pulling back. Not everyone takes solitude as well as you do, and you know, I am not even sure that you take it as well as you think you do.

You are right to enjoy your new apartment, after the wear and tear of the last years, which, I know, affected not just your furniture. But never forget the old over the new. I can’t give you reasons for this little piece of advice, but it is dear to my heart.

Let’s speak soon in person,

Dr. Hare”

“Dear Dr. Hare,

you were right, of course. It was good to speak in person last last week.

I am in a dilemma now. I’ve grown up with an energetic dislike of everything that’s not done well, a joyful disgust at platitudes, intellectual laziness, lack of rigor. And since this is how the world quite generally presents itself (banal, stupid, uninformed-and-not-minding-it), I’ve been happily assuming an ‘anti-world’ stance. You know that I am the last person to quote German philosophers. But I’ve always shared Hegel’s response to the truth that the world isn’t as he thinks it ought to be: so much the worse for the world!

And now I realize, this is just so Continental, and so socially impossible here. I see myself through your eyes, American eyes, and I worry that I look like someone I totally am not! I actually love simple things, and in particular, I love normal people (witness my sense that I’m only really at home in the mountains). And I’m far from any bourgeois pretensions at education (I was never the one to shine in Latin, or to even try to shine!). But I feel as if the edge of my creativity is ironed out of me in this culture of acceptance and positivity. Everything you said was so professionally positive, if you’ll allow this phrase – and please do not take offense.

Now I don’t know whether I should come to see you more often, to have it once and for all ironed out of me, so that I can move on, or whether the distance of written communication is better for preserving my sense of self.

Jens”

“Dear Jens,

I am torn, for of course, I genuinely am part of this culture. But, and that may even be part of the same cultural heritage, I am not one to give up. It strikes me that you are aiming for something that’s almost impossible: to grow sufficiently into a new culture in order to be able to feel at home, and to still look at it from a distance. The constant shift between the inside and outside perspective, I think, may be unbearable. But if that is what you need in order to be creative, I am certainly not going to ignore it. However, your letter leads me to formulate, perhaps for the first time, very clearly what I consider a goal of our conversations. You must learn to leave behind the idea that the world should be better than it is.

I’ll have to give this more thought, and so do you.

Sincerely, Dr Hare”

Marian just called to update my address and all. I’m intrigued that going to your office from my new place at Central Park West will now literally be a walk through the park – and a nice part of the park at that, with barely any tourists. I’ve confirmed our next appointment for Thursday [this] week.

Copyright 2008 Jens Haas - www.jenshaas.com

This is a time of change for me. If it weren’t totally out of question, I’d love to invite you to see the new apartment. Doesn’t the place one lives in say so much about one’s personality? But I know, this is not appropriate (though I hate that word). I have to report that my arm may not fully heal, but it’s alright, it’s good enough already, and still getting better.

I’m back to work. Right now, I’m putting the final touches on my book, my most autobiographic yet, which I am quite excited about. And here’s a confession: I am putting in anonymous quotes from our correspondence. Appropriate? No? Oh dear! I assume that many people are not going to understand it. But I see that as a plus. It means that you cannot really object. Or can you? I think it makes the book better, it helps the images speak.

Here’s another question that I want to talk about with you. My blog, which you kind of initiated, has gained an astonishing number of readers. I’ll admit that this makes me very happy. Especially since I’ve enthusiastically done everything wrong right from the start, thinking that, what the heck, what counts most is that *I* like it. So the idea is to share this platform with a few more like-minded people, creative minds, liberated from the confines of their daily grind in creative, academic, or corporate positions, and whatnot.

I’m much looking forward to our meeting next week, and to hearing what you think.

Take care, Jens”

“Jens,

it’s good to hear that we shall finally speak in person. I am much disturbed by your laissez-faire-attitude regarding your arm. This is you – your body, your person! You ought to care. Please promise that you will do everything to get better.

You are right, I cannot come to your apartment. As concerns your book, it may be best if we both pretended that you never mentioned this plan. You shall have to do what you shall have to do as an artist, and I will try not to be self-conscious in our correspondence (or, for that matter, resentful: am I a source of creative material for you, or a person whose ideas you value? – but I shall put this aside; if I were to go into the question of whether you can use confidential therapeutic correspondence in your art, I don’t know where this would lead us.)

On to more constructive matters. It sure is a very good plan to invite like-minded creatives to contribute to your blog. All these years, you kept telling me that photography simply is a harsh life, without a home, and without a stable circle of people to relate to. And I know that, as hard as this is, this feeds into your work in good ways. But still, perhaps your guest-writers can help you change this a little?

But more than anything, do not cancel again. It is important to come to your sessions and speak in person.

Sincerely,
Dr. Hare”

“Dear Dr. Hare,

I’m very much looking forward to next week’s appointment. I’m in the middle of reprogramming my website. In theory, I love doing this. Yet, there’s always a maddening difficulty involved: making it run smoothly on Windows Explorer, especially on the older versions of it (not compliant with Web Standards, if that means anything to you…). You end up coding all kinds of hacks into your site to circumvent the glitches, which is genuinely painful for a purist like me. Ah! There goes the beauty of simplicity. All this really bothers me. Why should a piece of poorly done software have such power over me? And most of all, why do so many people still stick to this software, when there are much better choices?

So, before I come to your office, do you have any consolation for me, or an explanation of the ways of the world?

Thanks so much,
Jens”

“Dear Jens,

what can I say, I know nothing about computers. In fact, I went to my assistant to ask her about this, because I’m so badly informed. It turns out that she too uses the Explorer, so part of my office here is running on it. When I asked her what version we have, she said she didn’t know. So, we are part of the world that makes your life difficult. (Of course, I have my little notebook here on my desk with Firefox, which you downloaded for me, as you of course know. But would I have this if you hadn’t helped me?)

I see your point: why not choose better over worse? Isn’t that an easy choice? Perhaps, but first of all, one needs to care about it. Yes, I’m glad that I switched to my lovely new notebook, and I’m glad that things are really easy. But did I mind my old computer? Well, you would say that I did, because it was all a mess. But in my own memory, I didn’t.

Now, please don’t think that I don’t understand your frustration. It is in fact a deep psychological question why people do not tend to make the choices that are, by their own lights, best. Perhaps that’s why I’ve gone into this profession, because I want to know why. So, your question is not unheard, and not unappreciated. But it really is the question of whether human beings are, on the whole, rational or irrational, and I am not sure that I have found the answer yet.

And yes, please come in next week, we should talk – not about computers, preferably.

Yours,
Dr. Hare”

“Dear Jens,

thank you for your note from Italy, it was good to hear from you. I actually put some thought into your case (if you allow this impersonal formulation) since our last session. Two things have become clear to me. First, that you are not putting everything on the table in our conversations – surely not when it comes to talking about your childhood. Second, that your photographic projects have always been personal, but maybe, as a sign of progression in your self-understanding, should become even more personal. One way or another, I have come to the following conclusion: your next – and I dare to say, your defining – photographic project should be a biographical project. You have given away too little from your past for me to make any more definite suggestions, and of course I know that this is anyway not the role of the therapist (though I admit that I am tempted, I’ve always loved the creation of images). Could you go back to the places and the people of your childhood? Why not read the essence of your life from the faces of those who raised you? Or rather, from the pictures you would take of them? From how I know you, this may be the roundabout route that you need. Clarity will not come from therapeutic conversations. It will have to be an artistic process, since this is the medium in which I sincerely think that you will eventually face the issues that matter to you most.

Don’t be out of touch again for so long, it is important for you to pursue this. And think about my ideas. I look forward to touching base again, and to seeing you in our much-loved Manhattan.

Take care of yourself,
Dr. Hare”

“Dear Dr. Hare,

you know that few things make me happier than receiving mail from you, and in particular, mail in which you – as you so rarely do – leave the confines of your role as therapist, and talk to me as you did in your last email. It seems very possible that you are right, I should go and photograph the people who shaped my life, and I should read from their faces. I’m not yet sure that I can get myself to do so. The mountains, where I am right now, are interlocutors of a different kind (I know what you will say, they don’t talk back to me and they really aren’t interlocutors – that’s true and not true, but I won’t get into this).

I feel that I am at a turning point in my life and that I need some more weeks here in Italy before I fully turn to thinking about the issues that you address. But be assured, every word of yours sinks into my heart.

Do take care of yourself too,
Jens”

I spent last weekend at a philosophy conference at Princeton University, furthering and enhancing my American experience. Ironically, the night before, I saw the movie “A Beautiful Mind” about the life of John Forbes Nash, a math student at Princeton in the mid 1940ies, who later in his career was diagnosed with “paranoid schizophrenia”, came back to Princeton, was somehow tolerated on campus regardless, and went on to receive the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1994 for his “Nash Equilibrium”, which applied to Game Theory (out of curiosity, I just looked it up: as of 2007, Nash is still an active member of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton). So now I have a feel for this side of the country—a not unattractive mix of elitism and irreverence, I think. However, both the movie and the, occasionally, rather fierce conference, gave me pause with a view to my own life. While the act of photography itself does not necessarily leave your brain unused, the things that follow (the gallery scene, the art business, etc.) seem to. So where does that leave me with respect to the beauty of the mind?

But I’m writing to you about a somewhat more immediate question that I have (and, as you know, I do appreciate so much that, apart from our appointments, you do communicate with me by email, and have allowed me to post some of this on Notes From Nowhere [see here or here]). So my question is: Can one ever feel at home again as an expatriate? I hesitate when I write ‘again’, because I’m not sure that I ever felt at home, or ‘rooted’, anywhere in my whole life. You might think that it is suggestive and interesting—and I would love to hear your ideas on it—that when I think of ‘roots’ here I think of the mountains, which visually doesn’t seem to make sense. We’ve talked before about my fantasies that Manhattan’s skyscrapers are mountains, I know, and that I perhaps just should get over it. But something about mountains is deeply reassuring, and skyscrapers just do not have this effect on me. I do know that you have a number of patients from overseas––so, in your experience, can expatriates ever feel like being truly at home?

Thanks so much, as always,

J.”

“Dear Jens,

it is good to hear from you, I had a sense that something wasn’t quite right—you didn’t show up for our last meeting, and rather than emailing me directly, you emailed my assistant. My sense is that it would be helpful if we could meet for actual sessions more regularly, rather than corresponding in this somewhat erratic fashion. But I know that you are traveling most of the time, so this is what your life is like.

Forgive me for saying that, to me, your fascination with mountains seems to point to deep issues. We talked about this before, and I guess I thought that you might get over it in some way by working on your Mountain Project in the Dolomites [here…]. But I now see that you haven’t, and that your fixation on the mountains is only getting worse. What is going on with you, Jens? I think that you will find what you seek not by moving to the mountains, but by understanding why you do not have the kind of stability in your life that the mountains seem to suggest to you. Feeling at home need not be a matter of where you are—it might be a matter of not doubting what you are doing, and embracing your life. And do remember that, in the past, you have sometimes felt very much at home here, and that there are some who would miss you dearly if you left for a life lived entirely in the Alps.

Let’s talk soon at my office. It’s true that you can write to me, and that I am happy to write back. But I’m not sure that this can take the place of a real conversation.

Regards,
Dr. Hare”

“Dear Dr. Hare,

I am so sorry that I had to cancel this week’s appointment. It always takes me a little, or rather, a little too long, to settle in again when I am back in the city.

Last night I went to a dinner party near Broadway and 85th. Had to. You know how much I hate parties. Mostly brainy, Upper West Side intellectual types. Quite a contrast to the Italian mountain folks I’ve been dealing with recently. There was a well known New York art critic present who could actually make or break (well, maybe not break) my career with a stroke of a pen. Literally. He’s retired, but still rather active – his verdicts are all over the place. Well, instead of promoting myself and sucking up to him, I seriously started a debate about Pop Art and was my dismissive self re contemporary photography. Which he of course finds – as he told a charming and increasingly mystified woman innocently standing next to us, with an odd, indulgent smile on his face – “so interesting, but maybe a little pornographic” (I kept thinking, every man needs a good friend who reminds you to shoot yourself once you hit an age where you find parking lots pornographic). While we both hated each other right away, I actually enjoyed that at some point he got upset enough to leave the party prematurely. Another bystander later tried to tell me that things hadn’t gone all that bad, but he was in denial – it was truly horrible.

Then, and this is why I’m writing to you, there was this young woman (apparently she had just graduated) who kept telling everybody how much her fiance is going to make in his first year as a dentist (USD 185.000, according to her). She really seemed excited about this and oddly reminded me of the old man talking about the parking lots. Now, there are many things that I don’t understand about women, and I certainly don’t understand the last thing about American women – especially those from well to do backgrounds: Why do they spend the first 18 years of their lives consuming approximately 1000 movies about “true love”, cry their hearts out watching “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or “Sleepless in Seattle” even if they’ve seen those a hundred times before, then get a great western education in some ivy league college to sharpen their minds – and then marry someone for his salary? Is this a case of genes winning over culture? I do see the inherent logic of course, but I still want to understand all this more fully. (I am aware that this is kind of a practical question, and a general one too. You may not be interested to go there. Still, the issue bothers me quite a bit.)

Also, recently I’ve picked up an old habit and started to take pictures of animals again.

Hope to see you as soon as things calm down a bit. I do appreciate that I can write to you, as of course you know.

Jens”

“Dear Jens,

the subject of American women tends to come up with all my patients from overseas – men who in some ways love the US, but simply cannot get around the fact that they could never see themselves loving an American woman. Which of course causes great psychological turmoil, so no need to worry that you are raising the issue. For how can anyone consider coming to this country for good if there is no prospect of love?

However, here are a couple of points. First, it may seem pedantic to remind you that, according to your own – rather nebulous, I admit – account, you do have a girlfriend. Perhaps this is why you are presenting the issue as theoretical and academic, rather than practical and immediately pressing. But be that as it may (and I repeat what I have said before: I am not sure whether you are being completely frank with me when you mention this ominous girlfriend, who supposedly is, of all things, a philosophy professor, this being a detail which does not make your story any more plausible).

Second, and somewhat more to the point: Go and spend some time with American women, and you shall come to appreciate one of the deepest truths ever – we love what we know. European men have come up with what seem to me rather wild constructions (the ‘victory of genes over culture’, in your case) in order to mask an experience which all of us find bewildering and unsettling: encountering what we don’t know and don’t understand. More than in landscapes and buildings, this experience shocks us when it concerns other human beings. And worse than anything, other human beings whom we would like to think of as potential lovers! You think you see an overly materialistic outlook. But really, believe me, you simply see something you don’t know. Only time can heal this, and this means, only time spent here, rather than with your European mountain friends.

So I hope you settle in fast, and shake off the memories of by-gone cultures, seemingly still alive in the Alps! I find your shots of animals lovely (I know that’s not what you like to hear, but after all, I’m not an art critic), and I do admit that they make me see things a little from your point of view. But I worry that they are part and parcel of your escapist tendencies.

Let’s talk soon, and as long as you don’t feel like you’ve regained your inner balance, perhaps it is better to stay away from the big shots of the art world. You may need them! And like us American women (yes, I live here too!), you might come to see them differently at some point in the future.

Speak soon,

Dr. Hare”