It is getting close to Election Day here in the United States and we all need a little bit of quiet.
No doubt it has been a crazy year and businesses are still struggling, economies are still struggling, and people are still struggling. Dealing with the pandemic, social change, loss of jobs, and an election season here in the States it is safe to say that quiet right now is just what we need.
Like many of you I would relish the chance to get outside and play in a place like the wide open badlands or the peace and quiet of the Rocky Mountains or even the Flatlands of Kansas. I would cherish a quiet sit along the Welsh countryside or enjoy a nice evening sitting in a bistro in Swansea. But at least for me, none of that seems like it is going to be happening anytime soon. I would bet it is like that for many of you, too. But we can hope.
Things right now seem a little bit blurred and we have good reason to think of it that way. This year hasn’t been easy but let me tell ya, it sure seems to have gone by quick. I used to think that the blurs of life were just me getting older, but now I have come to think of them as happy little accidents that I can often appreciate only when I get back home and see what I have.
A little side note is never go deleting things out of your camera until you get home and get them onto your computer or tablet. But there is a life lesson there to be learned, as well.
But back to this blur and quiet thing that I was talking about. Maybe you and I can take a minute or ten and come to appreciate the blurs and noise so that way when it is all over with we can look back on this time and find the good in it—no matter how hard it is.
I bet that you learned some new skills along the way. I wrote and published a book and learned some new photography skills that I had been meaning to learn. I learned some new editing techniques and picked up plenty of new tricks along the way. No matter how loud, how blurred or how noisy the image of my life was at the moment, I could still find a way to manage something good out of it—I’m sure you can too.
Tonight I am reminded of the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson who once wrote “to be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”
I think we should take that to heart and amid all of this noise and blurry vision we need to take the time to remind ourselves who we are instead of becoming who and what the world wants us to be. We can do that even amid a pandemic or panic.
Find some quiet.
