Sometimes the picture just doesn't work out...

I had a vision of the scene as I wanted it. It was beautiful. It was calming. It was a picture of structure and solidity among the movement and changing. It just didn't happen...

I tried so many different things. Lower angles, hand focusing, higher angles, less light, more light... It just didn't work. Nothing I could do could make it work. No changing, no fixing, no undoing, no doing... it just didn't happen.

It was supposed to be wonderful. But it didn't happen. You can talk about best laid plans. You can say it is not the destination, but the journey. You can talk about making the best of the bad. All those nice cliche' statements that are supposed to make everyone feel better. Except that they don't do the situation justice. Sometimes you just have to admit that it is bad and nothing you can do can change it. Sometimes bad is all you have.

Not a very pretty sentiment. If that is all there was to it, quitting would be the only sensible answer. If the awful truth is all there is, why continue? What is the point?

Some people never move past that stage in life. I can imagine that this is what makes them end up bitter and angry. Others never realize that the picture in front of them is bad. They pretend it is a priceless work of art, but it is all lies. Passers-by look on with morbid fascination at the fool gawking at the bad picture. Wonderment encapsulates their thoughts. "What can I be missing that this idiot sees?"


Other people move on. They accept the bad and choose not to stay there. You can call it rising above, moving on, overcoming, or whatever you want. It doesn't really matter what the phrasing is spelled like. You can stay with the bad or seek the good.

I don't want to end it here. It feels like another "fake it till you make it" exhortation. But that is not what I am trying to say. If it is not real, then faking it is just as bad as the idiot pretending the picture is a good picture. The good picture belongs to the people whose hope is not in the present, but in the transcendent. Life is not defined as a mere moment but summation of them. Do you have that hope? That is the true question. Not whether your life is bad, but do you have hope despite the bad?

Small Town America

So I felt like stretching some of the creative writing muscles I had not used since high school. My goal is to give you a mental image that will take you back to the place you have been through that seemed like a whole other world. I hope you like it. Mrs Stephens, this one is for you.

The day was hot and the air was thick. Time dragged on despondently. Leaves rustled in a listless breeze, an almost pathetic attempt at displaying life.

The city was a small and quiet one. Old houses alongside older trees and roads. The local children ran and played in the small dilapidated park. Old men gathered on the steps of the archaic courthouse to hear the same stories they had been telling for years. Every once in a while, a mother would call out and the group of children would expel one from its membership.

To the stranger and interloper, this town was like many others. Worn out and woe-be-gone. Run down and decaying into oblivion. But to the denizens, it was security and peace and happiness. Families grew old and became young at the same time. The generations passed on like a marching band moving off the scene.

My time there was short, but it left an impression. I see the history of what once was with the sadness of the inevitable irrelevance. Newer, faster, and better would soon be replacing the hand me down, the eventual for the patient, and the simply good enough.

What would become of this place? Would time allow it to pass gracefully on to the next generation? Would it wither and die juxtaposed against the furious pace of progress? Would it thrive as a hallmark of a bygone era? Would it adapt and become wholly new again? To these questions and many others, only time will tell…