On Fading In.
"Are you still sad, Christian?" asked a very good friend of mine. "No, not today. I've faded the problem out for now."
Ah yes, is it really that simple? Yes and no. Fading out — I like to call it my “internship in applied ignorance.” Because what I don’t want to see, understand, or acknowledge simply gets ignored. The problem gets removed from the viewing window of the mind, and possibly of empathy as well. No, you don’t need AI or Photoshop for that. It works far more easily with the tool of fading out.
Anyone who knows about fading is either a photographer or a show-off. Quite possibly both. And the effects are unpleasant for the audience — or not. That’s really their problem.
I have always struggled with fading out. Not because it’s exhausting — practice makes perfect here too. But the idea that the mechanism might someday become routine, that unsettles me.
Why would I want to remove topics, problems, and events from my mind and from my field of view? Well yes, there are terrible, grating, and disturbing images that push themselves into my line of sight. After all, I can’t selectively pull only the positive or agreeable events from the torrent of news. There are events that exceed the imaginative capacity of a normal, average citizen of planet Earth. Perhaps my imagination is far too overheated and should be treated with medication. When reading certain news stories, it’s not only the content that forces itself into my thoughts — that would make me merely a recording device. Some stories cause tremendous uproar in the synaptic soup of my brain. The associations with my own experiences, the collisions with my own philosophy — that is too much for a fresh morning with a well-brewed cup of coffee. The clear message, however, remains: the news doesn’t care. These are real events, and they occupy the person receiving them. Namely, me.
Would now be the moment to catapult some of these stories into fade-out mode? Do I really want to know how wretchedly the people still alive in Gaza are getting by? Do I really want to watch the course of the climate catastrophe unfold with wildly blazing forests? Do I really want to stand by as fundamental human rights are rapidly dismantled? Do I want the future of my children and grandchildren burned into my mind as nothing but grim visions?
All right then, everyone get ready for a collective fade-out. And: ACTION!
I can’t do it.
I don’t want to do it.
I’m no fader-outer.
So: Fade in. Think it through. Carry on. Of course, some mornings go and sulk in a dark corner on account of this. That doesn’t bother me. I’m not the “it’s-seven-in-the-morning-and-the-world-is-still-fine” type.
Right then, what am I supposed to do instead? Well, what people everywhere in the world do or can do: face it.
Talk to each other, organise, support one another. Isn’t that the oldest trick of Homo sapiens — pulling ourselves out of the swamp together by our own hair? For those without hair, I recommend arms and shoulders. They pull quite well, and willingly enough.
Sometimes it goes only so-so, dealing with the news rather than dodging it. For that, I’ve found a reliable remedy by now — a way to keep activating those positive, hope-kindling fade-ins.
Fading out things that make me uncomfortable. Or things I can’t or won’t engage with. Fading out is ignorance for beginners.
The flamingo protests in Albania.
The ICE OUT demonstrations in Minneapolis and elsewhere.
The Mexican firefighters at the Canadian wildfires.
The reservoir of examples with approaches to solutions is enormous.
And it is a genuine pleasure to fade these stories in.
I am a self-declared fader.
In. Not out.
