“Why don't you ask the kids at Tienanmen square?
Was Fashion the reason why they were there?
They disguise it, hypnotize it
Television made you buy it”
I get distracted by the smallest of things all the time – a flickering light, a fly, a car passing. Any movement and sound out of the ordinary will absolutely grab my attention from whatever first had it – slight hyperbole. That’s why, if I’m editing images at home, I have to turn my phone facedown. The sounds from the alerts can pull my eyes away from the computer screen for a second, but the phone lighting up will definitely tear me away.
It’s something that I try to focus on controlling, especially when conversing with people, I let them know how easily I can get distracted, so it doesn’t seem as though I’m uninterested. I’ve also realized that it comes from a heightened sense of awareness. I like to know what’s around and who’s around. As a photographer, too, I find myself gazing a lot for observation sake; so it seems like these characteristics just kind of all come together.
I was standing up outside the movies the other night waiting on someone when my attention was drawn to the cars that were dipping in a small pothole as they passed me, exiting the movies parking lot. At first, I was simply trying to see where the pothole was so that I would avoid it when I was leaving, but something else caught my attention. Imagine that this hole was shaped like a spoon. The part of the pothole that the cars dipped was the bowl of the spoon, and there was a longer, thinner part of the pothole funnelling into the bowl. Water that was running down the street from the side of the building by the escalators had created this spoon shaped pothole.
Over time, as the water ran down the street, it eroded the tar. The bowl portion that the cars dipped in was the part of the road where the water seemed to have collected. I just started to think that maybe no one else had even seen this pothole; maybe some didn’t realize the shape it was in and maybe no one realized what had obviously created this pothole. It took partial distraction, observation and then some thinking.
It also made me think that something as simple as water could cause damage in such a strong material like the tar. It made me think how something so harmless could cause that much damage over time if not taken care of. The consistency of the seemingly harmless “issue” proved to be too much for the subject that didn’t receive the necessary help or attention. And in this case, the subject was absolutely helpless. Unless the road could miraculously stop the water on its own (lol) it would require an outside source – someone who is accountable – to monitor the subject to take action to prevent and/or assist in the event of a harmful situation.
This seems like it might be quite a bit to chew on. Writing this stirred up so many thoughts on all the “seemingly harmless” issues in my life that may have gone unattended. Like, is there water consistently running over the tar of my life? Is it settling and creating holes in my structure?
Seems like a part 2 is needed… Maybe…
*Cues Hypnotize by System of a Down*
