Photos

I used to love taking pictures, but I don’t do it much anymore. It’s nice to have a stack of old photos that you haven’t seen for years, a juicy apple to feed memory. The problem with seeing snapshots too often is that the memories can become fixed and trapped in the picture; like you can’t remember anything else about the day. Curse of nostalgia. The other problem is the overabundance of bad-quality images. When someone takes a photo now, my first thought is that I hope they post it on effing Facebook, and how it’s kind of like evidence that I did something. Also, (as mom has observed) there is a whole genre now of self-portraiture taken at arm’s length, usually angled to make the eyes look bigger, expression in the face windblown, determined, flirtatious at best, more often just kewpie. I think everybody’s done it, but I feel so embarrassed for the person. Photos, recorded music, these things can be junk food for the mind. We should limit ourselves on the cheap and easy and make sure we observe and hear good things. Why should the mind be abused when we’re so careful about our bodies?