Issue no. 3
The older I get the more complicated my relationship with the word “almost” gets. I've always thought about life from the point of view as my oldest self - what memories will she have to look back on when she's too old to take the risks that are available to me today? What achievements will she be the proudest of. What life will satisfy her? How can I ensure her happiness? In nice moments - mostly in moments of uncomplicated joy, I often think “this will be a nice memory". That's why almosts feel so hostile to me: I don't want to be the person that “almost” traveled to the places she wanted to or “almost” took that risk or “almost” achieved that goal. To me, “almost” has begun to feel like a failure.
I've always wanted to be like my favorite storytellers - people that have lived unique and interesting lives - enormous, well-documented lives spanning many different countries and touching many different people. People who live vividly in the minds of others because they are so singular. I fear not being that person, but I'm learning to accept the possibility that I am something different.
It's tempting to believe these days that what we love and who we are must receive some widespread acclaim to prove its worth. I mean - the world has never been more connected, everyone can see you, so maybe it stings more when no one is looking. Maybe it feels heavier when you just can’t seem to figure out why things that are so prescriptive and mediocre remain the ones that money, fame, and accolades are rained down upon. I don't know why. Our world has expanded broadly, but it's also flattened in dimension. Most of us are living two lives: one for us in the real world, and our 2D life for consumption on the internet. And that second one is beginning to take up too much mental space. After a year of lockdown, screens became everything: the portal through which we traveled, saw loved ones, learned things, kept up with world events and cheered each other on through ostensibly the hardest year of our lives. It's not so crazy that we end up putting so much stock into how the internet looks back at us when the average person is staring into its cluttered void for 5.4 hours a day. We cultivate a fear of missing out, an unrealistic ideal for how much art and entertainment and wisdom and productivity we should be churning out - and how many eyes should be on it. We crave some payoff.
There's a sweet spot between clinging and detachment that I'm trying to slide into and curl up in. It's that mental space that isn't rigid, or unforgiving or cut off from possibility by tunnel vision. It's the place where you can live and connect and create without expectation and every interaction doesn't have to feel like a transaction or ladder rung to be climbed up or knocked down. Finding this space allows you the capability to clap for your peers who are accelerating past you and still find joy in what you're doing without toxic envy sending you spiraling. And by “you” of course I mean “me".
I'm learning that one of the most common and frequent ways we break our own hearts is through rigid expectations. For instance, when I go out into the world hoping to take a great photo it is exponentially better that I don't go imagining what that perfect shot might look like. It's too large a constraint to expect that the world, in all its chaos, will produce the shot that I want to take and give me the time to take it. In the time I spend wishing and hoping for this specific image I have in my mind to come together I've already overlooked countless beautiful moments and will probably come home frustrated with nothing.
The antidote to this is , unsurprisingly, to live with your eyes and heart open and just let life happen to you. It's as exhilarating, warm, and lovely as it is terrifying - to open yourself up to what the world throws at you. It's a pretty brave act, I think. In a recent post by writer and artist Alok Vaid-Menon, they wrote “I was put here to notice.” That really stayed with me. As a shy kid who grew up to be a reserved adult, passionately curious about the world but often too timid to step fully into it, observation became what I view as superpower. Photography is the thing I do that makes me feel the most myself. Images are important to me. I do the thing they say you shouldn’t do - I take it personally. I’m aware of the scale of the world, and I know at any moment in time people have a ton of options for who they choose to take the time to truly see. We glance at so much in life, but we only see a small fraction of it. Imagine how much narrower that scope is if you let the sight people who intimidate, surpass or refuse to see you slow you down or stop you from doing what you love. Think of how much more you grow to hate your almosts when you expect every single thing you do to be a home run. Your life, your passions, do not need the validation of witnesses. These things can exists purely for pleasure and self satisfaction - and when you stop playing to the gallery and start listening to yourself you can begin doing something genuinely interesting and unique to you.
Keep in mind, any advice you see in here is wholly autobiographical - I'm writing what I need to hear the most right now. And right now it's ‘“almost” is not your enemy." Almost is a necessary bridge to success. Almost can be the turning point that gets you out of your own way and into something better that you hadn’t even thought of. Almost is a necessary shade of grey.
Scroll for some of my favorite almost moments - each one of these shots when I first looked at them frustrated me in one way or another. My trip to Mexico City especially was FULL of almosts: I wasn't as comfortable approaching people because I don't speak Spanish and I made a lot of blurry or timid-looking images. That kind of think usually CRUSHES me but I'm getting better at accepting that my ability will grow and contract and I need to get used to the idea that there are just some places I'll have to go to more than once.
