It carries an energy
#78: After a quick week off, keeping it light with some thoughts on creative tools + a generous photo dump
There is an energy that comes with a new tool. Perhaps it makes for a high price to pay for reinvigorated creativity — but when I get a new camera, the compulsion to test the tool, take new photos, and try new things, is often second to none.
I am no gear-head, and have little interest in sharing the specifics of which tools do what, how they do it, or why you should use this for that. That’s all quite boring to me — yet I can’t deny my interest completely. The tools we use to create the things we love play their own special part in the dialogue. Your favorite pen, my favorite camera, your favorite paints, etc. They’re important, aren’t they?
Is it the newness, the novelty, the aspects of owning something and calling it yours? The relationships we have to our things is so commonly written off as superficial that it can be weird to even think about. Maybe what makes things special to us is the sense of physicality they hold in our lives. To touch anything feels a bit intimate when you think about it.
Or maybe it’s the use-factor. The handiness. The doing. The literal being with said thing. To put anything to use gives it an energy that it hadn’t possessed before. That energy is us. It’s the same energy that we wash the dishes with; the same energy that gets us out of bed. And though we don’t always feel it, it is always with us.
I have a new camera in my life. Had you guessed? Maybe you have seen some of the pictures. Today I’m here to share this momentum of moments and mementos — relics of recent holding and clicking, pointing and shooting…thanks for being here.
Real miscellanea
🤔 Resolving the unresolvable: the difference between thinking and ruminating
“Ruminating is a trap posing as a good plan made by a bad friend. And like a bad friend, rumination is poisonous. When it surfaces, it’s a signal that something else inside of you needs attention.”
⛪ Beauty tips from nuns
“There’s a saying in religious communities about ‘divine sandpaper.’ It’s that intensity of being accountable to other people for how I am and how I’m being. That’s what I attribute all my growth to. If I were living alone, I wouldn’t notice some of my rough edges. I could ignore them or deny them. I could just go on my way.”
🌸 Harriet Parry’s Flower Interpretations are stunning
🪑 The Park Bench Is an Endangered Species
“Maybe that’s the greatest power of the park bench: its capacity to retain and encourage the art of observation. A good bench catches us in our quietest, most vulnerable moments, when we may be open to imagining new narratives and revisiting old ones.”
🎸 Album on repeat: Accelerator, by The Convenience (Apple Music + Spotify)