Rambling Onwards

Did you ever groan and cringe when you were younger when your parents told you to stand somewhere so they could take a photo? Did you reluctantly walk over and vaguely smile to make them happy? Or did you just refuse?

I used to cringe and say no and make a fuss. Today, I still cringe inside but I oblige (most of the time). I still wonder why my parents don't understand the value of candid shots though.

Many years ago, when I was still in primary school, a family friend gave my sister and I each a photo album. At the time I didn't want it - I didn't know what to do with it and I didn't want it taking up shelf space in my room. When I was young, my parents took lots of photos and put them into albums - they're all somewhere in the house, numbered from 1 to something like 10. But as I got older, my parents became busier with work and driving my sister and I around to go to school, to dance classes, to swimming classes etc. they just didn't have the time or energy to do so and as a result there's a gap in physically printed photos placed (that alliteration) in albums for a few years... until now.

The beginning of the 2015 print out and photo album compiling. This is the photo album that I was given and I filled it up pretty quickly actually.

In my high school years, especially the last few with our last everything and graduation and formal, I tried to take more photos because I felt a need to capture moments so I could look back and remember, even if it's to remember my 12vie self and how immature I looked (but hey, we all go through puberty and make it to the other side). It's not really making up for all those lost years where you refused to let your parents take photos of you and they gave up, but it's a start.

The final week of high school. Yes there were a lot of photos taken.

Ideas can be dangerous things.

It's also not the first time someone has said that, or used that phrase to frame a religion, a culture, or a race - or anything for that matter.

A bad case is being in love with an idea of someone so much that you can no longer the real thing - that sucks, because all your dreams and expectations get crushed when you realise that they are just a person. Just a person, like you, and they're not this goal of unattainable perfection which you want a part of.

When we look at people, we see them through a mirror - what we expect to see. When you look a little deeper and listen to them, you can start to see them through a window. And when you actually listen to them, you can get a clearer view through that window, but you can never completely understand them because you cannot be them.

But you can be yourself.
I find myself wondering whether I spend so much time planning things and writing them down in my diary so I have a physical record because I actually need to rather than I enjoy the process and the feeling of being prepared, like I've got it figured out.

It's probably both, actually.

But when I found myself planning instead of enjoying moments that I had set time aside for - well, I guess you could say I realised that there was something wrong. Because being there, in the moment, sometimes isn't as satisfying as having it worked out. It isn't as interesting - you're not piecing together a puzzle that is the time you have available in your life and fitting all the pieces of your life into it. The thrill comes from planning something rather than the act itself - it's hard to cherish something that's over in a few moments rather than something that is the build up.
I feel it's hard to see reality through a filter which is literally yourself, and we are full of ideas, full of thoughts and perceptions which we hold as true and as real. But there's no real way of knowing what the real thing is since we all have different ideas, right?

Because I'll be honest - I'm tired of having the same conversations over and over again with different people and I only have so much energy to give. And while a lot of people matter to me, sometimes it becomes too much if I'm literally hearing the same thing over and over even if I talking to someone new. It makes it easier yes, but does it mean much?

There's so many more ways one could choose to live life that I've never contemplated until recently and I never considered them as options. But if there's one thing I've realised it's that doing new, unexpected, unplanned things ie: being spontaneous are the most fun - and make the best stories actually. It stops life from becoming so boring, so much like a vicious cycle of constant work so you can afford to take a holiday (as a friend cynically put it yesterday) - and it's even better with the right company. And if that company is just you, then that's how it is.

With love, a-more-philosophical-than-usual-but-probably-wrong Sarah x

Image from Tumblr.