Transcending Life

  Literature—both writing and reading— and photography are so attractive to me because it simply changes you. It changes the way you view the world, more specifically, and I believe it is accentuated by living in New York. When I am walking on the streets, I am not only looking at the world through a pair of eyes; I am also looking at the world through an imaginary camera lens, making me notice things that I would normally ignore at a glance. Perhaps a random city-issued trash-can would not normally deserve attention from us pedestrians; it would just surf by our peripheral vision. But when I consciously notice the trash-can at a certain second in time, a certain angle along my walk, when the trash can is symmetrically lined up with the street behind it, and someone happens to be peering into it looking at the enigma: I have a picture. Reading and writing has a similar effect. During my waking hours, I don’t just let the scenes of the world briefly pass by my sight; I absorb it and look at everything more closely. I’m not just looking now, I am unconsciously translating sensory details into words and sentences, imaging how I can describe this object to a blind man with descriptions, this feeling to an emotionless man. How would I transcribe this flicker of life into a beautifully crafted paragraph? Because of this, I wonder about the texture of the object, how it would feel, the intricate curves and angles, and what it adds to this overall scene I am looking at. Invariably, I have a fuller picture of those objects and backgrounds than a normal person—and doesn’t that mean I get a fuller picture of the world? Of life? Sounds a little egotistic, but you know what I mean. We take our surroundings for granted—something that you especially cannot do in New York City. Perhaps the saying ‘open your eyes’ is wrong and does not suffice. It should simply be: look.