When we least expect it life begins living and we are washed ashore in the joy.I love cycling up hills on my bike, this past year I have begun enjoying the downhills equally (almost) and that has as much to do with becoming as skilled at descending as I am ascending. Confidence.
As the year/decade has concluded and another opened I'm starting to get the hang of it again, my photography and my writing. It's beginning to feel right, the "feeling" is returning. I'm exploring more photography and writing of others and much further afield than I did a decade ago when I boxed up one life and opened up another. I now see those new clothes were only partially mine, the rest I was trying desperately to make fit.
Most of the past half year I have been trying to unpack that old box, retry thoughts, notions, ideas, and see what still fits. It's taken a while, but surprisingly I discovered that I gained no weight, yet grew; didn't shrink, yet have a smaller footprint; and most importantly, never lost my curiosity appetite for the world explored through words and images and sounds.
Growing up we are told there are no short-cuts to success, and on some level I've paid my dues to that credo, but this past year the decade has come more sharply into focus and I've concluded living a life is about learning short-cuts, and more importantly they exist and every well lived life has them.
I'm discovering a strange new attraction to the web and ironically it has increased my enjoyment of reading and writing - both things all its critics rioted against it for destroying. Blogs in particular are becoming ever increasingly a part of my daily/weekly reading agenda. I'll try and share more of them here, and those of consistent interest I'll also post to the new blog section I have started in the right column.
The following I found on a blog by photographer Sean Gallagher that I have enjoyed for what he connects me to as much as what he says. The following quote he posted, found via the NY Times photography, video and journalism blog LENS - well worth checking out regularly. It hit me in a particularly wonderful way today, as I just purchased a range of new cameras and lenses to launch 2010, both new year and new decade, rededicated to images and words.
“What kind of typewriter did Hemingway use?” Jim Estrin, photographer at the New York Times for the last 20 years, asked his news photography class by way of an introduction this morning.
Nobody knew.
“That’s because it doesn’t matter,” said Estrin.
Short-cuts keep surprising me, but come more anticipated by the day.
No comments:
Post a Comment