Sensitivity

All my life I’ve been criticized for being too sensitive. First by my family particularly my mother, later by people I worked with and girls I dated.

And they were right. I am very sensitive. I am sensitive to the people I am with, situations I am in and to anything else that surrounds me.

There is one common misunderstanding that everybody who ever criticized me had in common. They saw sensitivity as a weakness and not as strength.

That concludes that to them somebody who is strong, somebody who can achieve something, somebody who is self-confident is not sensitive, is less emotional and because of that can get what he wants.

But what kind of life is that? Is life worth living without being sensitive, without being vulnerable? Without being able to feel?

And who came up with the idea that sensitive equals being weak? It is not true in my case. After more then three decades seeing me as the weakest in the family I gave my folks a wake up call that turned their world upside down. The same is true for people I was working with or I was dating.

Being sensitive is not being weak at all. Only somebody who is strong can be so courageous to open up emotionally. And what are we without being emotional? Dead men walking, Zombies, soldiers brainwashed to accomplish a mission while we don’t even know what we are fighting for? There is no joy in any of that. This is not living; you only can call it surviving.

Surviving? Surviving for what? To live another day seeing but without feeling the beauty of the sunrise?

I used to believe what I was told. I am weak, too soft, fragile and felt very bad about myself because of that. This blog post is dedicated to all the sensitive people out there. Don’t listen to anybody who tells you that you are weak!

I am very sensitive but also very strong. I have been living in New York City for the past 12 years. I came here with $ 500.00 in my pockets. This is supposed to be the hardest cities in the world. As the song says, “If you can make it here you can make it anywhere”. I am still here and I am not planning to leave. And for anybody who doubts my physical strength, you are more then welcome to come with me to kung fu training.

Sensitivity is nothing else then welcoming life fully. You can easily get hurt but at the same time you open up to all the abundant joy that is available.

And how would I be able to do my work, how would I be able to shoot images like this without being sensitive?

"Sensitivity" Williamsburg/Feather found and shot for "Grand Street Project" 12-07-08 at around 04:30 PM

Please check out my website at carstenfleck.com