Two blocks from home, a runner approached the corner and howled. The cyclist swinging down the street in front of him yelped back, a noise of recognition that may have been a name but came from a mouth that misplaced the consonants. Two humans revealing themselves as animals, easy to forget beneath that sweat-wicking material, their exertion not made necessary by predators but as a forced form of exercise. Not that I will complain: we might be fucked but I do like wandering every aisle of the grocery store like I’m starring in a game of Snake. Foraging is only appealing one afternoon a year when it can be documented from all angles by everyone.

They continued down the side street at the runner’s pace, the cyclist slowed to a wavering line, as a van turned down the block and took its place at the rear. 

Step one: Have the thoughts.

Step two: Record the thoughts. 

Here’s the secret of movie-going humans: they’re covert experts at creating films in which they’re the stars. This is the long and laborious director’s cut, the highly detailed hero’s journey: waiting for the toaster, sitting on the bus, laying in the dark blinking and unable to fall asleep. An excellent soundtrack, very low production values.

Especially on the internet, it’s easy to create a narrative about someone else’s life because the pieces have already been pared down. Hell, not being someone else usually pares it down quite enough. This is also true when glancing into homes on walks: seeing a banner hung in the window is best, and serves as a potent and poetic reminder that you’re merely a spectator to the YADHTRIB, etc. Online or off, the presented evidence is an infinitesimal fraction of how people truly live, but it’s still a part, and a transformative one.

Photos give viewers the ability to build a narrative—such digestible portions!—and it therefore follows that taking them allows us, as both photographers and subjects, to build narratives about our own lives. Having a mechanical mediator can make it easier to witness what we might be missing. It injects a necessary awe simply by re-presenting our experiences, allowing us to grasp some grains instead of attempting to hug the whole beach.

Naiveté is one thing—don’t take the candy no matter the sweet tooth, etc.—but this wonderment is entirely different. Who’s to say what the proper perspective on a life is? Doe-eyed awe is as good as any, and an excellent way to remember you’re secured to a rock circling through an unknowable and expanding universe and experiencing it all with a body that takes care of itself.