Today was one of those days where I just felt an extremely strong compulsion to step away from the technology and get outside. I needed to touch trees and touch grass and get my hands in the dirt. I needed something that felt more real than the circus connected to the online world.
Yes, I do work online for a living and I do so by choice because so far it has afforded me a way to not have to become a wage slave in some soulless organization where what I do doesn't really matter to anybody other than some venture capitalist or a boss who needs to make a payment on his private corporate jet.
Cynical? Who, moi?
While I'm sure most people reading this can appreciate the healing power of nature and how it feels good to get outside I expect most people under the age of 50 cannot fathom how anybody could go outside and do something for 6 to 8 hours and leave their phone and their computer inside and never even think about checking it.
Which is precisely what I did.
In truth, nothing really happened while I was gone; the world didn't collapse and the people in it weren't any different than when I left.
When I take a break to be outside it is not necessarily because I have a specific purpose — like mowing the lawn or cutting the hedge — a lot of the time I go outside and just kind of drift around, often with my camera (and I'm not talking about the camera on my phone) close by in case something interesting shows up.
I started doing nature photography when I was in my teens, back in the day when photography meant you actually had to use film and spend money on that, and subsequently spend money on getting that film developed into prints.
Consequently, it was a time when you were a lot more discerning about when you clicked the button because it cost money every time you did so, unlike today's infinitely available digital imaging. Don't get me wrong, I love digital photography and I love the convenience of it although I still from time to time to shoot on film.
For me, the thing about nature photography has always been that it forces me to really look at what's there. I don't look at what is in front of me just as a wall of green with some flowers, I see each individual thing and I see each individual thing in the context of potentially being something that will create an interesting image that shows nature from an angle most people never paused to look at.
Yes, I did briefly consider the possibility of becoming a professional photographer, but in the interest of authenticity I decided not to because what people actually pay money for is stuff like wedding photography or Sports Photography or events photography... not so much pictures of flowers and butterflies which is where my often take so gets its healing.
On the whole, I would have to say I'm better off for having been outside for a large part of the day, and I'm grateful that I have the freedom — as a self-employed person — to do that. I often complain about our general lack of money, but I also get rewarded in ways that are non-monetary including such things as just deciding that today I'm not going to do anything but look at nature and work in my garden.
I think we all need that in some way. We have so few spaces these days in our days where we can literally stop what we're doing and do nothing. So much of the time when we claim we're "stopping" we're just stopping doing one thing so that we can do a different thing... seldom do we sit down and just simply do nothing and just look at our surroundings.
So yes, that was a good day. It was also a good day because I spent some of it working on my art.
Thanks for stopping by, and have a great remainder of your week!
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2026.07.29 02:10 PDT
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