Adam Landis- Response to the David F. Wallace Speech

The notion that permeates Wallace's speech is the idea that we need to push past our "default setting", to retain the considerate awareness of the world around us. I feel that Wallace would agree with Thomas Hobbes, that we can fall all too easily back into our primal mindset when we've been taxed to our wit's end, to be selfish, angry, irritable animals singularly concerned with the self. And while the human default in all its rough-edged barbarism has served us well, primary evidence being that we exist at all is thanks to our nature that promotes selfish survival, leaning on this instinct in the modern era simply leads to us loosing sight of the world around us. Leaning on default we miss the beauty of the natural world, the captivating structure of civilized city life, and our interactions with other people. So from the speech, I feel that I've had a notion that of mine affirmed by a wizened so-and-so. I know I'm guilty of relying on autopilot far too often, which should be a crime for a photographer. Whoever this Mr. Wallace may be, I agree with him that everyone, myself included, should spend more time thinking of things other than ourselves.