I guess this is a start

I’ve always enjoyed writing. There’s something about encapsulating somewhat indescribable thoughts and feelings into words that have the power to do things: move people, inspire change, spread empathy, memorialize moments.

There’s beauty in that. Creating memories and leaving these systematically collected and configured letters in a place where you can find them again and remind yourself of what was. So I guess here’s to starting something new and following through with something I’ve told myself I’d try for what feels like too long. It’s time I follow through with promises I make myself because god knows I haven’t valued myself enough so far to actually care about the things I tell myself. So here’s a first look into the complicated, messy, and chaotic world I call my thoughts:

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words. I guess that’s why people in my generation are so quick to document every second of their lives in carefully positioned photos, covered by color-altering filters and well-thought out captions. Hell, we have entire social media platforms that are solely dedicated to documenting these meticulously planned photos that intend to tell a story about our lives. It’s about efficiency. There’s no need to go through the hassle of writing a thousand words if all it takes is one snapshot. One second of our time. But what so many people forget to look at is context.

Context with what a picture is actually capturing.

Context with what the saying intended in the first place.

The hardest part about looking through social media is the uncontrollable envy that comes from seeing a person living a happier life than you are. It’s inevitable. But what we forget all too often is to consider the context in which these photos came to be. How many shots it took to get the right smile. How long the photographer took to make sure the picture *just* off center enough to be artistic. How many filters and alterations were put on the picture to make it worthy of being shared with the people we supposedly call our friends, or worse yet, our followers. How, rather than enjoying these memorial-worthy events, we take time out of these fleeting moments of time to take pictures with the intention of showing other people who don’t necessarily matter how great or happy this place we’re in is. I am just as guilty of this as the rest of my generation.

I don’t think that when the first artists said that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” our interpretation is what they had in mind.

I think that what they meant was an honest capturing of time. A snapshot with the power to trigger feelings and memories, as if it was simply a pause in time that was waiting for a person to come along to click ‘play.’ That’s not what we have anymore with the painstakingly curated photos we share. Rather than using these photos to capture moments in life, we base our lives around these shots. We seem to believe that memorializing these events is more important than actually enjoying them because they become permanent. We think to ourselves that we can go back to these commemorations for the rest of our lives and revisit these events. But what do we actually come back to? In the end, do we really want to be looking back at memories of ourselves obsessing over the importance of preserving these memories?

I guess what I’m saying is that maybe a thousand words are not all that bad if they actually get to the heart of what pictures were meant to be but no longer are. If we can actually capture the beauty of memories in all their dimensions of life in the capacity of words, so that we can go back to them in the future and be reminded of what living during these events were like, then maybe these thousand words are better for us than the pictures we over-occupy ourselves with perfecting.

Sure, details might get a little fuzzy and rosy retrospection might alter the lenses that we see these moments of our past, but maybe there’s beauty in that too. Maybe moments weren’t meant to be captured as accurately as possible or with the highest resolution attainable. Maybe these moments are best preserved as how our hearts and our minds perceived them to be.

My macroeconomics class has taught me lots of practical ways of thinking. According to some pretty gnarly laws of economics, if we can assume that a picture is worth a thousand words, then a thousand words is also worth a picture.

So to you and to me: let’s get to writing