When you're a kid...

...you love things like the holiday break in December, Spring Break in April, and Summer Break in June. You think that you are getting away from all of your "pressures." The hassle of being a kid is just too much. Everyday is another day of some grown-up (many you don't even like) telling you what to do. You pine for the days when you, too, will be a grown-up and can do whatever you want. No more school. No more people telling you what to do because you are grown. Staying up to watch whatever you want. Eat whatever you want. Go to bed whenever you want.

I wonder what kid me would say if I were to go back in time and tell him that when he is grown he will go to bed at 9:30, have his every move and decision revolve around his one year old son, and spending one night in a hotel in downtown New Orleans is considered a vacation? Silly kid me...the horror

People often ask...

..."What does it all mean?" I actually get that question a lot. Maybe it's because I have a degree in philosophy. Maybe it's because I always wear a countenance of deep concentration. Or maybe it's because I often wear a t-shirt that reads "I know what it all means." (I made one of those up) I can't say that I have THE answer, but I do have an answer. The problem is you may not like it, or maybe you will. So, here goes. You got a pen? Write this down:

It all means nothing

Well, that was anticlimactic wasn't it? Maybe even a bit depressing. Nothing? That's a hard pill to swallow. I've always said that man's most fatal flaw is he seems to need a reason for everything. Everything has to be concretely justified in order for it to be worth the precious little time people are allotted on this organic rock floating through space. Existence is a massive thing to ponder. It's enough to make you go mad. What is your purpose as it relates to you, those around you, and the seven billion other people on this planet? The galaxy? The whole expanding universe? Well, the sad truth is, not much. What you do is very likely to impact only a few people if you're lucky. Deep down inside, people know this. And it scares the daylights out of them. It depresses them to no end.

Now, before you go off and deem me some sort of buzz-killer, there is another side to this. There is a beauty to the nothing. Due to the fact that everything means nothing, we have the power to make it mean anything we want it to be. We have the power to take that nothing and fill it up with whatever makes us happy. Granted, it can be very difficult to find exactly what makes us happy, but that is why we were given the gift of these lifetimes. We have decades to figure it out and if we find it (no matter how early or late in life) then all preceding and subsequent moments were not in vain. So, there you have it. Nothing. What will you make it?

This is the first post...

...after the 31 pictures in 31 days challenge. I took a few days off just to gauge how it would feel to not be taking pictures. Some days it felt odd. Some days I felt nothing. I guess the mixed feelings were a result of the frustration I sometimes felt while taking part in the challenge. I hope that as I start to get back into a more natural groove that everything will level off and I will have reached some sort of zen