2024 - A year to reflect on and what might come + a discourse on death
2023-2024
As we inch closer and closer to 2025 I can’t help but stop for a moment to try to take in the year that was 2024. With the end of the year comes new opportunities, new things to photograph, new things to work on, and more “Dad lore” to build. This year has taught me a lot and I have had opportunities I couldn’t have ever imagined I would. I have taken so many photos I have honestly lost count at this point, listened to countless hours of “Sleep Token” and rediscovered lost interests I had. I also finally went to Asia for the first time in my life, China specifically (go check out my photos that trip here if you haven’t already). I even had my first real surgery (double inguinal hernia repair) and even had the chance to visit Auschwitz, a place of great importance. Reflecting on the scenes I saw there, it got me thinking about life more seriously. Victims displayed on walls, photos of bodies piled, rotting as the Earth swallows them back in (our collective home). I can’t help but think when looking at the images (shown to us at the camp) of people being herded into lines toward their deaths, of the individual thoughts each victim possessed during that instant. As a photographer, I try to show what my subject (or subjects) are witnessing. More importantly, I attempt to conjure the “soul” of the moment. I admit that behind most of my photos is an underlying aura of the “sublime”. That acknowledgment of our place within the universe, “us” vs “it all”, and the instant that we ourselves (or the subject I am photographing) are experiencing.
With this in mind, one thing has become very prominent in my sphere of thought during the year: the fragility of it all. I no longer feel that I have time. There is no time in life. There is simply nothing that secures us from the inevitable other than by realizing the inevitable is to come and bite our lower lip. Wherever you are she is there watching over you, pseudo- guardian angel in character. She sits in the back of your car as you drive, next to you while you eat, lies near you while you sleep. Her name is Death. Some will tell me “Why do you talk about death in this manner?”, “Why make it a big deal?”, “No need to think about death while you have your life ahead of you”.
When talking about death we need not talk about her pathologically. She is not to be blamed for her actions but rather understood. Her purpose is paramount to the clockwise cycle of existence. She is there not to stop us from enjoying life but to remind us of our life. We forget on a daily basis that we are even alive at all. Merely “living” with the purpose to feed our insatiable appetite for pleasure not realizing that the real life we are meant to live lies in the pain we are so adamantly avoiding. Why blame Death for her actions when we are actively doing her job better than she is? She scorns us as she watches us waste our time, avoiding the risks that are meant to be taken. She gives moisture to the dead when she sees how we juggle the hours, days, and years away. I am currently 23 years old. Yes, that is young but it feels that the years have marched by and not even glanced back telling me to catch up.
As “Pink Floyd” said in their song “Time”: “And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you, no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.” *cue epic guitar solo*
Dear reader, what I have said is not meant to scare you. I have written this to pinch you and myself. Writing this, I reflect back on all my failures and accomplishments not from this year alone but from all the previous years I have lived (not many but still enough). I sit and think “What is to become of me? I am not even sure if Medicine is my true calling regarding my current feelings toward it, then what?”. This is meant as a wake-up call. This is meant to push you to genuinely reflect on the year as objectively as you possibly can. Look at where you can improve on. WRITE IT DOWN IN DETAIL. Writing on paper is preferable as it takes you longer to write what you want to express thus forcing you to think harder, unlocking reserved brain-power that can be used to come up with a more detailed, realistic, and actionable plan toward living the life you want to live.
I wish you the strength and endurance to constantly challenge yourself, to think that you can always outperform yourself in anything you do all while appreciating the life you are living with genuine curiosity and compassion. Have a great new year dear reader, I wish you a happy 2025!
P.S. Remember to drink enough water :3
